An update from the middle of nowhere!

I had a great week on my tour from Adelaide to Alice Springs. This is exactly what I wanted to see of Australia, and I have not been disappointed. It's vast, empty, harsh, hot and so very different from anyplace I've ever seen. From the news I get from home about the snow piling up non-stop in Montreal, I really can't think of anyplace more different than where I am now! By the way, I hope you are all surviving winter so far. I feel for ya! :-)

The first part of my tour covered the trip from Adelaide to Alice Springs, the aforementioned "middle of nowhere". For 6 days, we drove anywhere from 3 to 7 hours a day through the desert, stopping at interesting places along the way for walks or for taking pictures. The highlights for me were Uluru (amazing!) and Kata Tjuta (even prettier than Uluru).

It was also quite the experience for me, with firsts like camping under the stars and sharing duties with 24 strangers for 6 days straight. The group was actually really good, and I met some really nice people. The camping was OK, although I can't say that I'm a fan of feeling dirty all the time (red sand & dust from the desert that covers you from head to toe) nor of sleeping without a pillow. And the showers, well, I'll just leave that to your imagination. Let's just say I am becoming an expert at scanning for bugs like centipedes and cockroaches while rinsing the shampoo from my hair. And I now know to look under the bed for dead mice before going to sleep in an underground cave. Loads of fun! :-)

I promised my sister Julie that I wouldn't complain of the heat, since she is freezing her butt off in Quebec and is not loving the early start to winter you've been getting this year. So this is not a complaint, I swear, it is simply a statement of fact: The Outback is HOT! On the few days where the sun was shinning full blast, you felt like you were baking in the sun. To give you an idea of how hot and dry it gets, when I washed my hands at one of our rest stops, I left the toilet without drying my hands (no towels or dryer) and within 5-10 seconds, my hands were bone dry! I was so amazed, I wet them again just to count how long it took to dry them, and didn't make it to 10 seconds. A bit geeky of me, but I thought it was so cool! And we were quite lucky with the weather, since it wasn't that sunny all the time. We had a few days of clouds, and some rain, and without them, I don't know how I would have managed not to get heat or sunstroke. It's also why most days on the trip start out really early (like as early as 3:45 AM!), so that you can get activities done early in the day before it gets to hot. The hottest parts of the day were spent sitting on a very old, uncomfortable but luckily air-conditioned bus.

I am now in Alice Springs until tomorrow, when the 2nd part of my tour starts. I will probably not be in contact until the day after Christmas, so I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!! Enjoy this time with your respective families, and stay safe!

As for me, I will probably be missing home a bit next week, but I still appreciate every minute of this trip I'm doing. No regrets or complaints from me!

Merry Christmas!!!