Day 10                                                                                                                                24/7/2013

Come to Uluru, it’s great! The national
heritage, the awe-inspiring geology and the aboriginal culture all adds up to a
big, red rock!

If you observe the rock during sunrise or
sunset it looks like a big orange rock, or a big yellow rock. But no matter the
circumstances, or the colour, this rock will draw your breath
away.

The warm walk around the bottom of this
rock will give you a great insight to Uluru’s background and the aboriginal’s
culture. The signs are very helpful and easy to read, after just one sign you
begin to understand what the place is all about. The walk itself is very easy;
all very flat and full of flora and fauna; great for oldies and
kiddies.

A must do of the Uluru experience is the
cultural centre. It is full of history and a lot of the beliefs of the
aboriginal people. There are lots of stories and videos of how the aboriginals
live. The art part of the centre is fantastic too; it is all very bright and
incredibly unique. My favourite painting was one with lots of bendy lines
radiating outwards from a central point. It looked really cool and it had a lot
of different shades of purple, it reminded me of the native flowers around this
area.

The climb that they provide looks
terrifying and all the rangers, signs and aboriginal people highly discourage
you from climbing it, for three different reasons. One: danger, the climb is
very strenuous and medical help is not readily available. Two: the climb is a
sacred walk for the aboriginals because two elders walked up there and erected a
ceremonial pole a long time ago. Three, pollution is a very bad thing up there
because people drop electronics, rubbish and just about all of them relieve
themselves up the top. So when it rains all the rubbish and body waste ends up
in the water ways and does not help the native flora or fauna. So on behalf of
them and myself please don’t climb it, and if you do please consider the
risks.     

Coming here is very remote and very hot.
The flies are terrible as well. But these factors are not a problem with a
phone, some fly repellent and a trip in winter. Everything is just magical in
winter, the sun is up but not too hot, the flies are around but are not a bother
and the tourists are around so you are not too lonely.  

The Olgas, or the preferred name: Kata
Tjuta, is also worth a look mainly for the spectacular views and for all the
same reasons as for Uluru. The walks are nice, the sun is up and there can
sometimes be water in the streams.   

A wise man once said “It’s not about the breaths we take, but of the moments that take our breath
away.”This huge rock will do just that; take your breath away. Thank you for
reading and I hope you enjoy you stay!  

Kathy is a 58 year old lady with a life of adventure!

On my travels at a place somewhere along
the Oodnadatta Track we met some very extraordinary people, one of them I was
lucky enough to interview. Her name was Kathy, she currently lives in
Nunawading. She decided to move there when she met her husband-to-be. They both
lived a fair way away from each other and Nunawading was half way in-between
both, a pretty fair compromise if you ask
me.

An adventure of Kathy’s involved her and
her husband cross-country skiing for nine kilometres with all their gear on a
sled to a hut in the High Planes in Falls Creek. Their sled had all the gear and
they had to push it with them for the entire trip to the hut. The hut its self,
housed native bush rats that you had to keep all your food away from to avoid
them getting to friendly, but if you didn’t feed them they would nibble on your fingers and toes instead.     

Presently if you were to ask what her job
is she would say“semi-retired,” but if you asked again she might enlighten you
further. She happens to own a coffee cart which she takes to shows and functions
serving top of the range coffee. She also owns (along with her hubby) a flock of
white doves. With such doves they take them to funerals and occasionally
weddings to release. Whatever you conceive them to represent is up to you.
People will usually hire one but sometimes more. But the secret to the doves is
the “homing function” that they are trained to do. They said that they usually
beat you home.

She happened to mention that one of her
most terrifying but incredible adventures was when; she was paddling down the
Mika Mika River in a rubber raft along with a few other people. Their boat
capsized in some of the rapids. She was trapped under the water with the current
pushing down on her and no matter how hard she tried to swim up she just
couldn’t get up for air. With the thought of death swimming in her brain the
adrenalin surged through her body allowing her access to super-human strength
and save her life.

Over her 58 years she has had many jobs.
Some of these jobs were working in the snow, as a maid, as a teacher and also
owned a ski travel business. She has worked in many a place; overseas, all
around Melbourne and a lot of places around Australia. She decided to do all
these jobs for the experience and for the thrill of it, because as I mentioned
briefly she is an Adventurer. Her dream job when she was growing up was to be a
plumber with her Dad, but as it was not socially acceptable to be a female
plumber at the time so her dream was
squashed.

Having so many jobs meant that she has
lived in many a different place, but as she is semi-retired she hasn’t moved in
a long time. She loves the city though, and if she was to pick a place to live
she says she would pick the city life.

The adventurous person she is her hobbies
include: cross country snow skiing, bush walking, water colour painting,
swimming, body boarding, surfing, ballroom dancing, badminton and
sea-kayaking.

One of coolest kayaking trips was in New
Zealand. She, her husband and a friend of theirs was paddling through Cook
Straight in their kayaks. But the cool twist was just that, a twist; the water
was twirling around like a vortex as well as going up and down with the waves.
What she remembered the most about the trip was her screaming the whole
time.

I hope you enjoyed my interview of Kathy,
and I think we can all agree her life was quite and
adventure!

Day 7                                                                                                                                    21/07/13


We started the morning off with a laugh; through the night the
dingos had eaten the bar of soap we had put outside. I can just imagine the
dingo burping up bubbles, just like the cartoons. I also happened to catch a
fish! YAY. It was the same type as the two we ate last night. The trip today on
the way to Marla had us drive through Oodnadatta; The Pink Roadhouse. There we
got Ice-creams and some lunch. Lunch consisted of macaroni with cheese along
with a pile of potato chips. It was very nice and comparatively the prices
weren’t either. Still having 15ºC days. The irony of the situation; we left home for the warmth
but when we left, Melbourne had the hottest day in July since 1988 or something.
FAIL! On the upside we have phone service so we have internet again. Staying in
a far less remote place tonight and it even has power. On that positive note the
end.

Day 1                                                                                                                                 15/7/13


The day had arrived; it hadn’t really sunk
in yet that I wouldn’t sleep in my own bed or have a shower in our own house for
over three months! We didn’t actually get away to about 11:50 or so because we
just didn’t. It took us six and a half hours to arrive at Mildura, my phone ran
out of charge twice on that long boring trip, but either way it wasn’t that
exciting. (The drive I mean.) That night we had homemade lasagne; Mum made it
the night before. After dinner we started Dads 100 Day Challenge, the idea
behind it was this: you did as many push-ups, sit-ups and squats as you could,
then, each night after that you tried to do one more than the last. It’s called
a challenge for a reason. Straight after that Dad gave us another challenge; you
had to get around the bench without touching the ground. I just made it with a
lot of sore muscles and various other
bits.