One thing about traveling – you quickly get accustomed to waking up at weird times. My first day on the Mulgas tour was no different... waking up at 5 to catch the 5:40 pickup.
I've got to give props to my friend Becky, who recommended these guys – what a great company. Mulgas has been doing these tours for about 15 years, and basically take about 20 tourists the few hundred kilometers out to Ayer's Rock, camp for two nights, then head back. For $250 AUS ($175 US), it's a ridiculously good value on transport and entry tickets alone.
But, they do so much more... our guide was a pint-sized bundle of energy and Aboriginal knowledge named Hayley, and man, was she fun! It's always a crap shoot when you go with a tour group – and she was awesome; well organized, enthusiastic, and all without being over the top.
For you 'shotgun'-calling fans, I somehow scored the front passenger seat on the first day without a single game of paper/rock/scissors, and even though I offered, no one seemed to want it later. That gave me sweet views of the countryside, plus I got to help out Hayley with the iPod music selection, running the various car games and so on. Good times.
Our trip even started off on the wrong foot – about 50km outside the city, our bus started having some engine issues. Just like so many times on my trip, this potential snafu actually worked out far better in the long run.
We pulled over at a rest stop, complete with some rather unhappy looking 'roos and camels:
…and a new bus was sent out our way.
The plus side is that this put us about two hours behind the flock of other backpacker buses. We rejiggered the schedule a bit, and this allowed us to basically have all the sites to ourselves, as we were pulling in as they were leaving. Sweet.
Our major stop the first day was King's Canyon – a massive red sandstone canyon about halfway to Ayer's Rock.
We had a few hours to hike the rim, and soak up the views of the cliffs, plus the sheer emptiness in the distance:
Hayley was full of good info about the place, including that this is actually one of the biggest 'canyons' in the world, as opposed to the mere common 'gorges' like the Grand Canyon. Alas, I've, uh, forgotten the difference – I think gorges are gaps eroded by water, where as actual canyons are cracks in the earth caused by plate tectonics. I guess.
It was a fun hike around the surprisingly green canyon – it served as an oasis to roaming Aboriginals for centuries, who must have been absolutely gobsmacked to see running water and green growing things after months in the Outback.
We even had time for some silly pics on a dangerous-looking, but very stable outcrop:
As a result of the changed schedule, Hayley whipped up a mean camel bolognese for us on our return (yeah, that's right... camel) which sounded pretty exotic, but tasted mostly beef-like. Still, delicious!
The rest of the night was pretty special. First things first, we stopped off for some 'flats' of beers to go in the coolers and ice that ever-prepared Hayley just happened to pack along. We all chipped in, and was a great way to avoid the near-extortionate $5 AUS a beer the other stores were charging.
On the way to the campsite, our late start did have some disadvantages... namely, we were driving in the Outback after dark. Just like the rest of Australia's animals, the kangaroos do things a bit differently. When THEY cross the roads and see headlights, rather than merely freezing like our deer, nope, they actually jump towards the bus! They're not suicidal – merely reacting to an ancient instinct, and once they see 'holy @#$, that's a BUS!', they then frantically try to hop away.
Two problems: one, they often hop straight back down the road. Two, amazing though they are, they ain't as fast as a bus.
Fortunately though, we somehow avoided hitting any of them in the dark, although a wayward cow on the side of road did give us a scare. Hitting a 1500lb animal at 50 miles an hour would be a bad thing. Very bad.
Mulgas has an arrangement with some ranchers and Aboriginal folks, and are able to just pull off the road into dirt tracks, and camp in the middle of nowhere. Setting up camp is a doddle, merely lighting a fire, and rolling out a bunch of 'swags' (super cool self-contained mattress/waterproof coverings – you just unroll, toss in your sleeping bag, and zip up) – 10 minutes flat, and we were all drinking beer and gazing at the stars.
Oh, and a quick work about the stars – I've seen some pretty amazing displays of stars on this trip. The Outback puts 'em all to shame – there were gazillions, with a super-bright Milky Way to boot. Just awesome.
Some fireside fun and games, including getting to practice my increasingly rusty Spanish to three women on the tour, and then it was bed to get ready for the 4:45am wake up the next day!
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