Alice Springs and the (red) Outback

The first steps of my trip have been made. Together with Jenny I left rainy Sydney behind me and headed towards Adelaide. After we claimed our bagage and walked with our backpacks for the first time we checked in at the hostel and went to look for some dinner. Unfortunately, life in Adelaide apparently stops after 8pm; we could not find a place to eat, only a minority of the bars were open and even Hungry Jack’s (Australian Burger King) closed at 10.30 pm. On top of that, the vodka bar, advertised in the airline’s magazine as on of the hot spots, was not to be found, place seemed not to exist.
The next day we flew to Alice Springs, another relatively small city in Australia. Here we met heaps of Germans and Dutch people, among some other nice travellers. We explored the city (which is very into Aboriginals and is very small) and chilled at the hostel. The next (bright and early) morning we left the hostel to go camping in the outback. These 3 days were in short: 1500 km of driving, 25 km of hiking in 48 hours, heat heat heat and some more heat (close to 40 degrees), cooling down in the swimming pool, sleeping in swags (= extra warm sleeping bags; we had no tents, just slept in these swags = very cool experience!), gazing at the stars, spotting the milky way, heaps of dead kangaroos on the side of the road, brumbies, dingoes (wild dogs) and cows waking us up at night. Jenny saw some shooting stars! And of course we went to see Kings Canyon, Uluru, and in my opinion the best of all: Kata Tjuta.
The group was awesome; 5 Taiwanese and about 18 Europeans, of which 3 were Dutch and two of them are from Houten (Marco en Marloes) (what are the odds of that??). It was a very exhausting, but most of all awesome trip, with long days (getting up at 5am, dinner at 9pm). When you brush your tooth with hand cream instead of tooth paste you know you’re tired.Yet, one more final dinner and some (drinking) games to get to know each other a bit better.
Now we’re off the to airport again. Jenny is going back to Sydney to ace some last exams and I’m off to Cairns!
Hope all is well!

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