Due to our wonderful planning we allowed ourselves just enough time to do Darwin and central Australia at a sensible pace, unfortunately we hadn’t realized it works out a lot cheaper doing an organized tour to Puli rock than a one way rental car or bus. This meant that the only tour in Alice Springs that was affordable and went in the right direction for our schedule was fully booked… thanks to Imre our friendly local (Norwegian we think) tour agent we managed to reschedule our flights and get on the ‘Rock Tour’ the next day. Three days walking around rocks and two nights sleeping in ‘swag bags’ under the stars at £150pp is believe it or not a bargain in comparison to the other tours on offer.. and although not sure about the bag thing we both really enjoyed it and sleeping under the stars was one of the highlights.
Kings Canyon was awesome, truly amazing geology and a very hot three hour walk, this was our first true taste of an organized tour and reminded us sometimes it is good not to do everything on your own – the guide was really informative and friendly, we crammed in loads of activities without feeling rushed, Gioia was convinced to sleep under the stars where sleeping in a car had previously been rejected, the food was awesome (my first real chilli con-carni in four months) and we met some cool people. Next on the tour was Kata Tjuta (Olgas Rocks) where we managed to see some rock wallabies before heading to the big daddy itself Puli rock (Ayers rock). Both were amazing and I even got tubed in a rock formation. We decided not to climb Puli rock to respect the local Aboriginals wishes and considering how many people fall off and die doing it each year. It seems things are getting better but it is amazing how royally screwed over the aboriginals have been since the arrival of white man in Australia, they are slowly having land returned to them but for example Puli rock (very sacred to them) it would seem has been returned but only on the agreement that they rent it back to the government… mmm sounds like they didn’t really get it back at all. I could ramble on for ever here but I’ll resist and merely suggest a visit is worth the cost – I was dubious until I got there but it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip so far.
Kings Canyon was awesome, truly amazing geology and a very hot three hour walk, this was our first true taste of an organized tour and reminded us sometimes it is good not to do everything on your own – the guide was really informative and friendly, we crammed in loads of activities without feeling rushed, Gioia was convinced to sleep under the stars where sleeping in a car had previously been rejected, the food was awesome (my first real chilli con-carni in four months) and we met some cool people. Next on the tour was Kata Tjuta (Olgas Rocks) where we managed to see some rock wallabies before heading to the big daddy itself Puli rock (Ayers rock). Both were amazing and I even got tubed in a rock formation. We decided not to climb Puli rock to respect the local Aboriginals wishes and considering how many people fall off and die doing it each year. It seems things are getting better but it is amazing how royally screwed over the aboriginals have been since the arrival of white man in Australia, they are slowly having land returned to them but for example Puli rock (very sacred to them) it would seem has been returned but only on the agreement that they rent it back to the government… mmm sounds like they didn’t really get it back at all. I could ramble on for ever here but I’ll resist and merely suggest a visit is worth the cost – I was dubious until I got there but it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip so far.
WTF Puli?
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