Tour Number 2: Still in SA but heading towards the NUllarbor

Day 1

Luckily for me but not for my friend he starts work at 6:30am so he was able to drop me off in town in plenty of time for my 6:45am pick up for my Nullarbor tour. I was being picked up at the Adelaide YHA and became nervous on seeing many people gathering outside the hostel a few doors up. Eventually I spoke with one of the few people waiting outside the YHA and discovered that she too was waiting for the Nullarbor tour so we decided we were both unlikely to be wring and sure enough at 6:45am our bus arrived.  Though the tour is called the Nullarbor tour our first few days were to be spent in South Australia. Before the tour could start we had to make a few more stops to collect the rest of our group. In the end there was a mother and her young son, two German couples two Swiss girls who were travelling together and four other girls who were on the tour on their own like me.   Our first morning was mostly spent on the bus and we used the odd rest stop to try and work out who we all were. The girls and I who were sitting near each other managed to chat a little on the bus doing the who are you , where are you from and what brings you to Australia thing. When we stopped for a lunch of sandwiches (which would be our standard lunch fare for the next ten days) we were able to mix more and have the conversation with most of the other passengers however it soon transpired that the German couples spoke very little English. We managed to pass the time pleasantly enough.  

After lunch we drove to Alligator Gorge for our first group walk. No-one is sure why it’s called Alligator Gorge as there are no Alligators in Australia but it was still a lovely walk and I was happy to discover that I was not the only snap happy person on the tour as a few of the other girls were happy to hang back and take as many photos as me. The walk was great and it was too soon before we were back on the bus and on our way to Warren Gorge, the same place we had stopped on our last tour to look for Wallabies. 

We did make a couple of quick stops on the way to pick up a few drinks for the evening and to collect some fire wood. Getting the cider was easy but the fire wood proved more difficult as it turns out that tress far from being peaceful giants are actually cunningly evil. I was innocently trying to break up some branches by jumping up and down on them when they attacked me and knocked me to the ground scratching my legs on the way down. Luckily the only thing really hurt was my pride and I managed to avoid collecting any more evil wood. We got to Warren Gorge late afternoon and before setting up the campsite took a short walk to look for the Wallabies but no-one had informed them we were there to see them and only one came out to visit us. Despite the lack of Wallabies it was a lovely walk and even managed to get our first group shot with most of the group present and using the timer functions on our cameras whilst balancing them on our bags. It was almost as entertaining as seeing the Wallaby. It was still early by the time we returned to the campsite so some of the girls and I walked up a nearby hill only to find a fence blocking our path. The walk wasn’t wasted as we spotted some small cacti and a more likely looking hill on the other side of the campsite. We had done a lot of walking so only two of us made the attempt but it was worth it for the view once we got there. Having run out of hills we returned to camp and set up our first camp with camp chairs round the fire and swags just beyond them before our first camp dinner. I also took the opportunity to rearrange my bag which one of my new friends kindly photographed. It was then time to prepare our first group dinner before going in search of the wallabies once more. This time we kept quiet and as it was later on in the day we were fortunate to see a few and this time I had my camera so I could take as many photos as I wanted before it was back to the camp for the night.

It had been a long day for us all so by 9:30pm we were in our swags for the night. Though it was not my first night sleeping under the stars on the last tour the fires and weather stopped me from seeing them as clearly as I had hoped. I have ben looking forward to seeing an outback starry night and was therefore very happy that on my first night on this tour though the sky was clear and when I woke up in the middle of the night I saw not only Orion but also the Milky Way and so many other stars I wouldn’t have been able to make out any other constellation even if I could have remembered what the southern ones looked like.

Day 2

After rolling up our swags and tidying up our breakfast stuff it was time to hit the road. We had the excitement of stopping at the bridge from the opening scene of Wolf Creek (which I have not seen and have no plans to see) and at Port Augusta for a top up of our alcohol supplies and some water since we were having difficulty with our water tank. Once we had our essentials it was on the bus again until lunch time where we found some impromptu lunch guests in the shape of two very cute dogs which appeared to be as excited to see us as we were to see them. After lunch we stopped by Venus Bay to see some wild dolphins. It was the first time I had seen dolphins in the wild and it was pretty cool plus we were able to paddle in the sea with some pelicans to keep us company afterwards. Our next visit was to be the Tub at Talia caves. The views were spectacular so I decided not to venture down to the tub due to my fall the previous day, not to mention the twice I went over on my ankle whilst looking for Wallabies had made me think I was too accident prone to risk the steep log ladder. I wasn’t the only one who stayed up top and we amused ourselves taking photos of the tub and the surrounding area. Shortly the rest of the group returned as we were on our way to Coodlie Park hostel. That wasn’t our last stop for the day though, we were merely making a quick stop to pick up some sand boards and it was off to some nearby dunes for some sand boarding.

Sand boarding was fun but not as exciting as I hoped. The dune looked high but it took now time to board down it and the climb up was pretty hard. It might have been worth it if I could have kept my eyes open but it found it really hard, next time I am totally wearing sunglasses and then maybe as well as seeing the view on the way down I’ll know when to make sure my chin up and not end up with a bruise on my chin! Yup day two of the tour and I managed to hurt myself for the fourth time. Seriously, I’m not sure it’s safe to let me loose on the world by myself. Thankfully I wasn’t really hurt and this time my pride was also intact since I injured myself in the name of adventure and I had yet another impressive bruise to add to my collection. Due to the harsh climb on the way up we all only had a couple of goes each before we headed back to the hostel where we were assigned our rooms where we would spend the next two nights before our week of camping under the stars. The hostel is part of a farm where they plant trees and run the tour business as well as being home to a number of wild wallabies. That evening we were taken on a nocturnal tour where we saw a number of kangaroos but only managed to glimpse a couple of wallabies.  The moon was getting pretty full and the owner of the farm told us that made us easier for them to detect and therefore gave them time to run and hide. It was still fun and we stopped to see one of their borrows and discovered that wallabies have square poop. It wasn’t a wallaby but it was fairly entertaining and on eof the kangaroos obligingly jumped a fence for us which was something new. Our search for the evening over it was time for bed, tomorrow was going to be a big day after all.