Groovy Grape Rock 2 Water Trip

  Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

We were picked up today at 12.15pm, by Greg our tour guide.  There were 6 of us that were picked up from the Haven hostel and 6 more on the bus - 12 of us in total.  The bus is very similar to the bus we used in Tanzania, an old 20 person bus, luckly with airconditioning.  There is also a trailer on the back were we store our big bags.
Greg hands out pens and asks us to write our names on the windows???  It does make it easy to remember everyones names. 
I am sat next to Janneke from Holland.  There is also:
Francisca from Holland
Nina and Sandra from Germany
Michael and Ivonne from Germany (our only couple on the trip)
Daphne and Lucy from Tiwan
Adi from Israil
and James and James from England!!
We are all under 27, but above 20 and we all seem to get on very well.
Greg stops the bus on the side of the road, right next to a road sign that says: 1519kms to Adelaide!  We are driving to Kings Canyon today and then on to Uluru tomorrow.  Kings Canyon is also on the sign - 453kms!  Good a 5 hour drive ahead of us, i think i will go to sleep!!







We arrive into Kings Canyon station and are shown to a wooden hut with a large piece of grass outside.  We were told to bring sleeping bags, but i figured there would be tents??  Instead we are each thrown a swag from the pile on top of the trailer and told to check it for any creepy crawlies!!  Argh i think we are actually supposed to be sleeping in these outside on the grass!!  They don't look to scabby though, they each have a matress inside and are water proof so we set them up in a circle on the grass and sit down to get to know each other.
Gregs cooks us a dinner of Stir fry and rice (though we think he got the numbers wrong, there is enough rice here to feed the 5000!!), which is actually very tasty.  The kitchen is inside the wooden hut and the toilets and showers are a short walk away.  They are actually very clean and we all shower and climb into the swags for bed.  I have opted to use my sleep sheet instead of my sleeping bag as it is still so hot.  I actually find the sleep sheet too hot and end up lying outside of my swag trying to get to sleep.