Cairns to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts on here, I've been quite busy since leaving Cairns at the beginning of March. I'm not going to go into too much detail as to what I have been up to since then but will give you a rough outline by starting with the Cairns to Adelaide part of the journey. To see the photos you will have to wait until I come home - I can't have you seeing all the photos before I get home lol.

Well Helen, Hannah and I left Cairns around the 9th March and took a 3 day bus tour to Alice Springs in the centre of Australia. The trip was really good fun. We stopped at a number of places on the way including the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, numerous cattle stations, Australia's smallest bar (it's in an area with a population of 2, 3 if the grandchild is visiting!!), and we also stopped to do a nothingness walk! It was a good fun trip and definitely the way to get to the centre of Oz if you have the time as it shows you how big the country actually is. It was strange being back in the outback and it did make me think I made the wrong choice not to work in the outback again, but then I remembered what I had planned instead and it was all good.

Alice Springs is an "interesting" place! After my first night I changed hostel as the hostel I was in was awful and I wanted to be in a nice place for my birthday! After settling into my new hostel, Annie's Place (anybody going to Alice, this is the place to stay), I went for a wander around the city. There were a number of drunken aboriginals wandering around and it didn't feel the safest of places. On my second day I joined up with 3 others and we rented a car to go out to the West Macdonell Ranges. We spent the day swimming in lovely waterholes and was great fun. My third and final day in Alice was my birthday! It wasn't a very eventful day. I went to see the Flying Doctors base. The flying Doctors is the medical service used in the outback. If people on properties (farms) require any medical assistance then they call the flying doctors who either tell them what to do over the phone or send a medical team out by plane. In the evening I just had a meal and a few drinks in our hostel bar with some people I met either on tours or in Alice itself. It was a good night.

The next morning we left Alice on the Adventure Tours tour to Adelaide. Over the 6 days we visited Kings Canyon, the Olgas, Ayres Rock, Coober Peddy (an underground opal mining town), Flinders Ranges and a number of other place. We saw lots of wild kangaroos and emus on our trip as well. It was a really fun trip and we had a really good group which thankfully included a mechanic who managed to fix the bus when it broke down on the second last day! I will tell you all more about this trip when I come home as I don't want to go into too much detail at the moment or you will all give up reading and wont read the exciting Melbourne post! the evening we arrived in Adelaide we all went out for a lovely meal and was a great way to finish off the trip.

When I was in Adelaide both the Adelaide Fringe and the Police and Fire World Games were on so there was plenty to do. On my first day I went to see some of the Police and Fire Games and then went down to the beach at Glenelg. It was a lovely beach and a good fun day. On my second day I went to see the Police and Fire Netball and Athletics events before meeting up with Hannah and Helen for lunch and some shopping. While at lunch I started to get tooth ache and so went back to the hostel for painkillers. I ended up sleeping all afternoon and when I woke up I noticed my left cheek was rather swollen! I struggled to eat some food before taking more painkillers and tried to sleep. After little sleep that night I went to the dentist the next morning to be told I had an infection from my wisdom tooth. So again I spent most of the afternoon sleeping and doped up on antibiotics!

The next day the swelling and pain had thankfully calmed down a bit as I was away on a 3 day tour of Kangaroo Island. It started off with a surf lesson which I managed to do half of before running out of energy and then we headed over to the Island. It is a lovely island and the wildlife is amazing. We saw kangaroos, koalas, penguins, fur seals, sea lions, possums, wallabies and I'm sure I have missed something! It was great to see all the animals in the wild. We also slept outside in our swags while we were there which was great but cold. Kangaroo Island did make me feel as though I was back in Scotland as I was so cold the whole time. I didn't have much cold weather gear with me at that stage as I had just spent four and a half months in the heat but we survived by lighting campfires. It was really worthwhile and I am glad I did not cancel the trip due to my tooth.

After the trip I had one night in Adelaide before leaving for Melbourne. I liked Adelaide and was gutted to have been ill and not see much of it. There isn't a great deal of things to do there but one more day would have been nice - another excuse to come back here in a few years! ;)

Sorry about the lack of detail, but I've fallen way too far behind in this to try and write much more!

xxx