The Red Center!

Ok folks, here it is... The Red Center! When I left Australia in 2005, the one thing I never did, but regretted not doing was "The Red Center" of Australia. The main attraction, of course, being Uluru, but more on that to come.
I left Adelaide at 6am and hopped on a tour bus that would take me to Alice Springs, the 'city' in the center of Australia that is the hub for going to Uluru. There really is not much between Adelaide and Alice except for a lot of driving on a lot of desert. There is, however, one town. It is called Cooper Pedy, the majority of which is underground. This town only exists because a rich opal field was found there 200 years ago or so. The heat in the desert is so bad, that the people who live there live in the old mine shafts underground!! There are some small parts of the town above ground, but mostly it is all underground. We slept that night in an underground hostel! We had a little tour in the morning, learned how opal was mined and then made pretty, then we took off straight for Alice Springs. I spent a couple of days in Alice, got to hold a joey (baby kangaroo), and then left for my trip for the rest of The Red Center.

For those of you who do not know what Uluru is, please allow me to explain. Uluru is the Aboriginal name for Ayer's Rock.
This is a huge rock that sits in the middle of Australia's outback. It has a 10km circumference and sits in the dead center of nothing but hot desert. The Aboriginals believe it to be a very spiritual place and many ceremonies used to be held here before it became a big tourist attraction. Today, you are not supposed to climb the rock out of respect, however many still do, and some even die.
I did not climb it, but simply took a 3 hour journey around the rock by myself. This was a brilliant time for me, I gathered my thoughts and enjoyed the spiritual presence that holds you there. I don't care who you are, you feel that presence when you are there. I started my walk directly after watching sunrise (we had watched sunset over the rock the night before while playing my self-made didgeridoo). and by the middle of the walk, 9 am, the heat was almost to much. There is hardly any shade and 2 liters of water is the minimum to bring. Still, it was a great way to start the day. I had traveled there with my new friend Thomas (Germany), he climbed the rock while I walked around it.
After the rock, we journeyed to a place called, 'The Olgas'. This place was wonderful as well and you could see Uluru from The Olgas, and vice versa. The Olgas was a little chain of huge rocks, or bluffs. The walk in between them is incredible and called "The Valley of the Winds" walk. We walked 5.5 km's here. If you do the math, that means I walked 15.5 km's before 11am! What a day! The rest of the day was spent driving. We picked up two more Germans along the way and the 4 of us took off for Darwin and everything in between.
There was a lot of driving on this trip, and we marveled at what the Australian's call "Road Trains"! They are these trucks that drive the distance between Darwin and Adelaide to make deliveries. They are 3 to 4 truck lengths long, are huge, and move very very fast! Here is a picture of some we saw parked at a gas station.
Our first stop was just to sleep, at a place called Ti Tree station. We had a few night caps, played some more didge, and went to bed. The next day we drove by a place called Devil's Marbles. There are perfectly huge, circular rocks here that extend as far as the eye could see! We played around a little while and then got back on the road.
We stopped at a place where apparently alien's had once landed (I think those people have been in the desert a little to long)! That night we parked on the side of the road for dinner and sleep. But half way through dinner there was a knock on our camper van door?! Who in the hell is in the middle of no where we thought. We cautiously opened the door, not knowing what to find. But it turned out all right, it wasn't any crazy desert person out to get us. Instead this knock on our door turned into the most perfectly random night and next morning ever! The person who knocked was a guy our age who worked on a cattle station, of which we were parked at the entrance of (we had no idea there was even a road there). He invited us on the station, hooked our van up with power and served us beer all night long. We talked with most of the guys working there that night. In the morning they took us on a tour of the ranch. We watched the cattle dog tear at the left overs of a cow they had taken meat from the day before. We helped herd 400 cows out of the fenced in area out to the fields! Cows are pretty stupid, and run right into each other. But the stampede was amazing to watch. Then we learned that there were 17,000 cows on that property! After we moved the cows, the owner of the property took us, one-by-one up for a free ride in his helicopter!! I have never been in a helicopter before and it was exhilarating! There were no doors on the tiny thing, and he did a few snazzy tricks in the air as well. The views from up there were AMAZING! Apparently a lot of ranchers in the area use helicopters to look after all their cattle on their many acres of land. Things have changed.
Later that day we moved on to the hot springs at Mataranka. We swam here a while. The water was definitely warm, but I wouldn't call it hot. Then we went to Kathryn's Gorge and took a small hike to some lookouts. The next day we drove to Darwin.Once I arrived in Darwin, I explored the city a bit while walking around the yachting yards and scouting out any opportunity to work on a boat going to South East Asia. Well apparently this is a bad time of the year, so no one was going. In the meantime I met up with some old friends from Adelaide, Sam and Rowland, and they put me up for a couple of nights. They took me to explore Darwin and we had a blast together catching up over some drinks. In the end I decided I had to fly out of the country before my visa expires. I have now bought plane tickets to Singapore, and leave tonight! My tour of Australia has finished and was well worth the year I spent here. I have made some amazing friends and have memories that will last a lifetime! A big thanks to everyone I met along the way for helping make the memories :) Cheers!

Pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/TheRedCenter# and http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/Darwin#

Next Stop... The Whitsundays!!!

So by the time it came for me to go to the Whitsundays I, and everyone else on my boat who had been stuck in Airlie, were ecstatic! There 53 of us passengers and 8 crew. It was just the best time, beautiful scenery combined with a GREAT group of people makes for an awesome adventure!

Unfortunately, do to the cyclone the water was quite murky and not its usual clear blue that you see in pictures. That being said, the water was still a gorgeous emerald green color. The first day and half the weather was a bit stormy, but that didn't stop us from having a kick ass time! The first day we sailed around some of the islands and became familiar with the area and the boat. The second day we started out going to Whitehaven Beach. The only place in the Whitsundays where there is sand. This was an awesome beach, wish we could have seen it when it was not pouring on us! Nonetheless, we made the best of it, put on our stinger suits (to protect us from jellies in the water), and got our feet wet. We must have played at that beach in the rain for at least a couple of hours. Then we made our way back to the boat for lunch. We tried to scuba dive, but the visibility was so bad due to the cyclone that the dive got cut short. We then spent the afternoon jumping off the side of the boat :) We sailed that evening to our next anchor spot, off the coast of Haymen Island (the only 6 star resort in the southern hemisphere). Apparently on this island the staff are never aloud to be seen except at their work station. They actually have built tunnels underground for the staff to use so they are not seen! We anchored here and started the party during a beautiful sunset. The next morning we went snorkeling (still bad visibility), jumped off the side again, and then cruised back to the harbour. It was a fantastic trip, one of my favorites!

Airlie Beach and the Cyclone!

Ok ok, so I am finally at Airlie Beach! A place I have wanted to go to for years as it is the take off spot for the Whitsunday Islands in the Australia Great Barrier Reef! I was sooo excited to be there... then i found out a cyclone was coming! Oh NO! My boat cruise to the islands ended up getting cancelled and I had to stay in Airlie. I was lucky enough to get another spot on the next boat cruise available, but this still gave me an extra couple of days to hang out in Airlie.

Airlie is like a backpackers heaven! It is nothing but fun and games and a lot of late nights! I lost my phone, promptly after my arrival, on my first night there... Go figure! As the cyclone hit, it was 5am and the winds were definitely exciting to watch. However, and luckily, no real damage occurred. The cyclone came and went, but we were still unable to go anywhere as there was damage to the north of us and the cyclone was hitting to the south of us. I and 4 guys whom I shared a cabin with (1 German and 3 Italians) decided to rent a car for the day to explore the area we were in.

We went to a place called Dingo Beach. We did not see any dingos. The tides here were incredible. In the 2 hours we were there, they moved out about 40m! As the tide ebbed, we went onto the sand flats and explored the life of little critters. We saw both starfish and crabs mating. Must have been the full moon! There was an enclosed area that you could swim in, the fence protected you from jellyfish. We also saw some camels. Later in the afternoon we drove to a place called Cedar Creek. There was a massive waterfall here that we splashed around in all afternoon :)

More pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/AirlieBeachBackpackerHeaven#

Hitchin to Airle!

I hitched a ride from Rainbow Beach to Airlie beach with a friend I met at a bar in Rainbow. His name was Joel, and as it turned out he drove a tour bus. However, he was not doing a tour this time. He was simply relocating a bus to Airlie Beach where it was needed. So instead of driving the 11 hours alone he offered to take me! This kicked butt as it saved me major money on a bus ticket and I had my own private tour guide! We stopped a few times along the way and he showed me some cool spots. It was pretty good :)

More pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/HitchinToAirlie#

Rainbow Beach, Fraser Island, & Ken's Didge Den :)

The inspiration continues! We were all having so much fun in Noosa that Lena and her husband decided to continue up the coast with me! My next stop was Rainbow Beach which is where you take off for Fraser Island (but more on that to come). I already had a tour booked there, but Lena and Peter decided to come up anyway. They rented a nice house for 2 nights. After the first night however, it was sadly time for us to split. I went on my 3 day/2 night tour of Fraser and they booked in for a 1 day tour as they had to return to Brisbane, and work :(
FRASER ISLAND
Fraser Island is the world's largest island made completely out of sand! It is also covered with Dingo's! Dingo's are kind of like dog's, slightly different in their DNA structure though. However, they appear very dog like and starving. I don't know why that is, but they always look like nothing but skin, bones, and hair. Like overgrown foxes, but with a dog's face and tail. Anyway, they are not scared of humans and will come right into your camp site. This is not good as they are a wild species and definitely are not as friendly as dogs. They are good little thief's too. If your tent is open, they will stick their head in their to find food, even if you are sleeping! But enough about Dingo's.
The island was incredibly gorgeous. I did a 3day/2night self guided tour of the island. When you sign up for this adventure, the organizers put you in groups of 11 to share the responsibilities of all your camping & cooking gear, as well as, the 4X4! They give you each a lesson of how to drive on sand (since there are no roads on this island). Can you believe they actually land planes on the beach here? Then you get a lesson on Dingo safety. Then off you go. Leaving from the inlet at Rainbow Beach with all your gear and vehicle, you hop on a quick 5 minute ferry to the island. The beauty of the island and the excitement of 4-wheel driving put us all on a high! As soon as we got there the attitude was, "Let the party begin"!

As you drive around the island you have to be very conscience of the tides and you are not aloud to drive at night. For this reason, the company who sets you up with all your equipment also provide you with an itinerary that they feel will maximize your enjoyment of the island and what you see while there. We visited an old shipwreck and climbed a cliff on the first day.








The second day was our favorite though. The island is quite large and has several fresh water lakes in the center. Our favorite being Lake McKenzie. One of my travel buddies called it 'Heaven', and it was :) The smooth white sand and the absolute clearest blue fresh water! It was like a playground! We stayed there for several hours. You could only swim in these lakes and not around at any of the beaches because the island is also a breeding ground for Tiger Sharks! And if you managed to stay alive in the water, you would probably end up stung by the jelly fish. Therefore it was advisable to stay clear of all salt water while there; so we played at Lake McKenzie for the majority of the day. There are more pictures of Fraser Island at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/FraserIslandAKADingoLand#

BACK TO RAINBOW BEACH
I was not meant to stay more than 1 night back at Rainbow, but I was enticed to stay longer. It could have been the awesome beach, beautiful surroundings, the fact that it was not built up at all and therefore a very peaceful and serene place, but more than likely it was the opportunity to build a Didgeridoo (Didge) while I was there.

The Didge is a native Aboriginal Instrument. Many believe that females are not aloud to play these instruments in the Aboriginal Culture. However, I was corrected on this fact by Ken, my Didge master builder teacher. Apparently some tribes from the Northeast of Queensland did have women who played the didge during ceremonies! Anywho, I stayed an extra couple of days there to build a didge with Ken and his friend Howie. The first day was spent in his didge den scraping off bark, sanding, molding and so on. After which we went for a refreshing swim at the near by Tea Tree Creek, then a hike to see sunset, and I practiced my didge skill (or lack there of), that night.



It was on this hike to see sunset that I was bitten! "Oh no, I am going to die!" was the first thought through my head. The pain was something terrible, I couldn't imagine where it came from and was sure that after spending 2 years of my life on this rock that one of its' many poisonous inhabitants had finally got me. I screamed with agony as Ken and Howie chuckled a bit. They, of course, knew what exactly had happened. I was bit on the side of my big toe by a jumping ant! This happened when I got down from the tree I was sitting in (pictured below). Oh it was awful! But Ken and Howie, both being indigenous people to the area knew exactly what to do. within 5 minutes they had collected this red, thick, gooey sap from a nearby tree. I later found out it was called a Bloodwood tree. They put just a bit on my toe and within five minutes the pain had subsided. I could still feel it in my stomach for another 20 min or so, but I felt much better and could walk again. By the time sunset ended, I had forgotten all about it. Later that night I was telling this story to a friend in my hostel and she told me that she had also been bitten by a jumping ant and that she had been in agony for four hours! I could not imagine that, I was so lucky to have the Aboriginal knowledge shared with me. *Interesting fact, the Aboriginals used to use these ants, voluntarily, to bite the elders who had arthritis. Apparently is cures arthritis pain for a while.

My second full on day of working on my didge consisted of painting it. I did this with a local artist named Ze. She was an awesome person and so fun to be with. She took me back to the Tea Tree Creek where we spent the day swimming, snorkeling, and painting! What a great day! My didge artwork came out completely different than I originally thought. It told me how it wanted to be painted. I used a beautiful piece of the bark that I did not shave off, to be the trunk to my tree of life :) Then there are iconic Australian animals around it. There are more pictures of each part of my didge up close (and the rest of Rainbow Beach) at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/RainbowBeachBaby#