The engagement story will be the post after this one, mostly because I have to recount the adventures of the past week while they are still fresh-ish in my mind ;)
We stayed in Bondi for two nights at the YHA, and had marvellous weather the whole time. Sunday was spent on the beach, each with our own rental body boards (free!) and we were going to do much of the same on Monday, except when I called to confirm our tour of Uluru for that Wednesday, they didn't have us in their system. We booked the tour on February 14!!!!!!! The stupid Byron Bay Nomads travel agency didn't do their job and after a day of stressing on the beach, waiting to hear back from two different people and not enjoying a beautiful day, we finally got the last two places on The Rock tour, which was the one we had originally booked. What we think happened is that the girl that took our booking booked us into our hostel in Alice springs no problem, then booked us on the rock tour but gave us a confirmation/phone number for Adventure Tours 'the rock' tour. Two different companies. What a bunch of *expletive deleted*s. Anyway we ended up sleeping at the Airport Monday night, since our flight to Alice Springs was at 640am. Sadly, Ryan didn't sleep, and I didn't sleep very much either (photos below). We napped on the flight, which was the inaugural flight from Sydney to AP, so there was a red carpet when we landed, as well as the mascot on our flight (photos below).
Our tour of Uluru was spectacular. We slept in swags at night, underneath the stars, and we did a LOT of walking (10.6kms around the entire base of Uluru, some 7.4kms around Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), and three hours around the edge of Kings Canyon. I didn't do the last one because of foot pain that's been around for a couple of weeks, and I'm glad I didn't because Ryan said it was a lot of steep inclines, etc. I took a nap in the bus with a few other girls instead ;)
We did not climb Uluru, and I suggest if you ever see it that you don't, either, since it holds a great religious and cultural significance for Aboriginals. It is very insensitive and selfish to climb, not to mention dangerous! It was extremely interesting learning how the aboriginal way of life is taught down the line through stories and traditions and how they lived directly off the earth for so many hundreds of years, before the Europeans came and screwed it all up. Ryan and I bought a few cards by an artist named Tommy Crow and we're going to frame them like mini paintings once we get a place together in Canada :)
We not only watched the sunset over Uluru, but saw the sunrise there as well! Photos to follow once Ryan sends them to me/ I upload my own. The Olgas were equally stunning, and thankfully we did that walk early in the day, as opposed to the Uluru base walk, which we did at 230pm. On the last day, as I said, I didn't do the King's Canyon ledge walk, but opted instead for the easier one-hour walk. I made the right choice, as there weren't any toilets on that walk, and they started it just as the sun was rising.....it wouldn't have been pretty if I had gone with them LOL
That night we partied with our tour group back in Alice Springs and won the photo contest for a photo that I took of a part of Uluru, that I had put a hat on....all will be explained when I actually post the photo lol but we won a jug of beer, so that was nice :)
We boarded yet another Tiger flight on Saturday that took us back to Sydney, but this time we stayed at the Stamford hotel at the airport. Our last night together was definitely in style!!!! We enjoyed a few drinks at the bar, had a fabulous seafood dinner and a bottle of wine, then stayed up waaaaay too late watching a movie in tv, in our king-size bed. This morning came too early, and we took a cab to the domestic terminal, checked me in for my Brisbane flight, took the train to the international terminal to check Ryan in for his 20+hour flight to Toronto, then had breakfast. He walked me back down to the train so I could go back to catch my flight, and of course I cried!! I even tried to Skype him from my terminal, but the free wi-fi kicked me off. Stupid sydney airport :(
So I'm back to living the backpacker life, carrying everything I own around with me until I find a place to live in Cairns. I'm looking forward to getting my own room in a house/apartment somewhere, so that I don't have to live with 46 other backpackers (cuz I am WAY too old for that!!!!), and I really hope I get a job quickly, and even a second job, so that I can save save save by working working working. I'm really sad that I won't be able to make it to Scotland at the beginning of May with Ryan's family, but it just wasn't realistic for me to book a $1700 return flight just for a weeks holiday. Hopefully I'll save enough in the next few months and be able to travel for a few weeks before returning to Canada sometime in August :)
Ok here are the photos, including the ones I mentioned earlier, a sunset taken from the balcony of our hostel in cairns, the night market in Cairns, some photos of us sleeping at the airport, us at Brunch in Bondi, the snake that lives at Toddy's backpacker resort in Alice Springs, and a quickie shot of Uluru, taken from our tour bus xxoxo
