Warm and sunny days, freezing cold nights, beautiful areas, no phone/internet reception anywhere. Those are the main words how I'd describe the past 2 weeks. 2 weeks ago I left Adelaide with a new roadtrip group. Betty and Ulli were still with me, but now Laura, Mae (both French), Armand, Niels (both Dutch), Peter (Italian) and Fred (Canadian) also joined us. We were driving with 3 cars towards Alice Springs.

After being in Adelaide for 3 full days, it was time to leave the churchtown. I'm not travelling to see cities, but at least it was nice to get everything (relax/mail/campingstuff/travelmates etc.) fixed over there. It took us a few hours to get out of the city, since there was roadwork everywhere... But at least we got into Port Augusta, the last town before driving trough the long highway that goes to Darwin, Stuart Highway. It was already dark, so we went to the first parkingsport we could find across the road, to camp there. It was really in the middle of nowhere, dry land, no trees around you and every few minutes a roadtrain (a truck with 2-4 trailers) passing. And not to forget, the desert was full with spiders... everywhere!

Ahwell, with a good closed tent I slept very well, eventhough it was quite cold that night. The next day we were driving further, and we stopt on a few spots: Woomera Rocket Park, Salt Lake Gairdner and a few breaks on the highway. It's pretty weird for me to drive for hours, and not seeing any town in that time. But to make it excited enough, we made many crazy pictures and video's of each other wherever we had the chance. At the end of the day we arrived in the small town Coober Pedy, the underground town. It's a town with a lot of mines. We found an underground campingspot to stay in. So really... we were actually camping underground.

It wasn't that cold for me, but it was pretty hard to breathe over there in the morning. We've spend the rest of the next day driving around Coober Pedy, because there was a lot to see. It was the kind of area where a lot of movies were filmed, like Mad Max, Red Planet, Pitch Black... Sand in red, white, yellow, many mountains that look like small vocano's, really nice area. In the evening we were camping somewhere else, somewhere... in the nowhere around the highway again :)

The next day, before we went further, we visited a kangaroo clinic. This is a place where they threat sick kangaroo's (like when they got hit by roadtrains on the highway). The kangaroo's here are almost like dogs! The guy showed some tricks, at least nice to see. After an hour we went further to the Northern Territory border, where we were camping around. The next morning we were finally driving to the spot we were all waiting for long: Uluru! Around the late afternoon we were finally there. Beer, pictures, happy faces, we were really glad to chill out there during the sunset. We stayed there for 3 nights on the camping, there was enough time to do everything: watching sunrise at Uluru, walking around Uluru, watching sunset again, and the same things at Kata Tjuta (another national park next to Uluru).

After Uluru we went further to Kings Canyon, a few hours away from Uluru. Beautiful canyon! Together with Laura, Pieter and Fred we decided to take the 6.5 + 22km walk around Kings Canyon, to see as many spots as we can and do some real walking-excercise. I felt trained enough (4 days Marchery of Nijmegen...) to do that. We woke up around 6:30, just before sunrise and we went from the camping to Kings Canyon by my car. It started really cold (around 5 degrees), but the temperature rised quickly to 25 degrees. We had enough water and food and tons of apples, so we were alright ;) Around 4:00pm we arrived at the end. Its funny to see the signs that say '22km walk, 2 days', and we actually did it in 8 hours (including a few breaks). Because the walk-route was one-way, the others were supposed to take my car to the other side of the route later that day. After chilling out for an hour, we saw no car at the parkinglot... We had no more food, water was almost empty, we were so tired, and we had no reception to call anyone @$!%@. We waited 20 mins for the first car that was driving on the highway, finally one vehicle! It was a tour bus that was driving towards the camping (where we were staying as well). It was really nice that the drivr stopped for us and gave me a lift to the camping. I was the only one that was allowed to go with him, because of the 'emergency'. On the way to the camping, I suddenly saw all 3 cars driving the other way to the place where we were acually waiting. It was funny to see a German girl driving my car :P Endstory was, that noone actually understood the plan we explained the day before... Ahwell no worries, we survived. ;-)

After Kings Canyon we were on the road to MacDonnell Ranges. This was a heavy day, because we had to drive for about 200kms over unsealed road. Well, usually you can drive up there easly with a 4WD car, but we were all driving with 2WD cars. This means, driving carefully, not too fast (not too slow either, that vibrates the car too much), and avoid stones on the road... Especially the last part. I had to concentrate a lot more than usual during the drive. It didn't go without problems, a stone hit one car's exhaust on the way and it dropped on the road. Luckly we were with a big group, so everyone helped each other. After 1,5 hour it was fixed (to continue) and we drove further. At the end of the day we arrived in the West MacDonnell Ranges, a big national park with many mountains, gaps, views etc. We stayed on a campsite for 2 days, but drove about 250kms around the area. After the MacDonnell Ranges, it was time to go to the first big town since Adelaide: Alice Springs, the small town with about 30.000 people, many aborginal people, a daily nightlife like Amsterdam on saturdaynight, it felt weird to be there. In Alice Springs we said goodbye to Betty, Peter and Fred (they had to fly out to Sydney). For the rest of the group was Alice Springs more like a pit-stop: getting the cars fixed, do your internet stuff, copying pictures etc. We have done some touristic things as well, visiting the Flying Docters and the reptile centre. I've done something I was always so f*cking afraid of: holding a snake. I was so afraid of the animal, but I did it (look at the pictures ;)).

By the way, I just got in in Alice Springs, and even I got a car problem: my left-front suspension broke. I was still able to drive, but lots of ugly noises. I was so lucky I was in a town to get it fixed up. I went to K-Mart auto service and they fixed it in one day. The day later we drove further... to go to Darwin. Just before we left, we also said goodbye to Ulli. I travelled since my start with him. He travelled back to south to Canberra.

Eventhough we were not in a rush and we took it easy, with 2 cars, 7 people (with a new French girl, Sevrine and a German guy, Jan) we drove a lot more every day, basically because er was not much to see on the way to Darwin. Well, about one national park a day, the trip was still great! The more we went north, the better the weather went (especially during nights). On the way we've been to the most central point of Australia, Devils Marbles, Tennant Creek, Mataranka, Katherine, Nitmiluk National Park and Litchfield National Park. It took us only 5 days to get in Darwin. The trip was a lot different compaired to Melbourne to Alice Springs... Warm, every day free camping, swimming in lakes every day, doing unusual things like having breakfast on the parkinglot of McDonnalds. Especially the warm part, for me, finally after 4 weeks travelling warm nights, no more freezing cold feet in the morning! On the 5th day after Alice Springs, in the evening, we arrived in Darwin. First impression: a big partytown.

Now I'm here already for 5 days, resting a lot, swimming in the hostel pool, few sightseeing, hit a few bars to dance and have fun, but really a lot of relaxing. Tomorrow I'll be leaving this place to go to Perth. It's gonna be a long trip, hopefully a lot of beautiful places to visit. I'm glad I'll leave this town... It's sunday right now, and while I'm writing this blog, there are still so many drunk people walking on the street!

Anyways, my gunshot headwound from a few weeks ago is healed (it left a cool scar), the km counter in my car since I left Melbourne is on 8883 km and sometimes its getting harder to speak Dutch. I still have 4,5 months to go till my visa expires, but I'll try to work for a second holidayvisa (to stay and be able to work for another year in Australia). At least I'll enjoy my stay here down under as long as possible, I'll go home when I get tired of it ;)