After two and a bit years of Covid enforced “home-stay”😊, we finally started our touring again. As a “test case” as well as revision of touring skills, we’ve chosen to tour within our home country first. As I had never been to the interior of Australia, Alice Spring was going to be our “pseudo overseas“ tour. At the time of travelling, the airlines were not in full capacity and as a result of this limitation, the plane flew to Sydney from Melbourne first before heading back west to Alice Spring.
Travelling during the month of June means more “user friendly” weather. The five days we were there, the top temperature never exceeds 23C. Yes, Uluru is very unique and with spectacular colour changes all the time (especially sun rise and sun set, you obviously need to stay at least one night at Uluru). We joined a group tour with sunset BBQ dinner under the stars. We were given an astrology 101 presentation after the dinner and the whole experience was wonderful. The coach driver had informed us that there were tourists who travelled on their own mistook Mt. Conner as Uluru. But from a distance I am not surprised that some people fell for it. Obviously Mt. Conner is inside a private property whereas Uluru has lots of tourists around all the time.
We did the King’s Canyon walking trail (again with a tour guide, note this trail has no toilet facility)) and it could be challenging for some of tourists. We were told if we could not complete the first 100 steps, then we could not continue the walk (all up about 3-3.5 hours). The walk was worth the effort as all the beautiful scenery can only be reached by foot. Our tour also included Kata Tjuta, Standley Chasm, Ellery Creek Big Hole and MacDonnell Ranges.
Together with the tyranny of distance and limited roads around Alice Springs (quite a few doubling back from one place to another) touring this place requires a good solid research and planning, and it pays to allow more time for the whole trip. Food could be quite expensive as compared to other regional towns. In the end it was a bit of an effort to tour but it is worth the trouble.
