The Rock Tour - Day 1

Friday, 19th March. Today was the start of my Rock tour. Breakfast was 2 slices of toast at 5:30am from the hostal and I was picked up at 6am, along with 19 other people.

We drove about 3 hrs to Kings cannon. It was 34 degrees and we had a 5.5km hike to do in the dessert cannon There were no water refill stations once we left base camp. So we had to carry all our water with us. The hike will take 3.5 hrs. Our guide refused to let us start the hike if we didn't carry 3 litres of water. They recommend drinking about 1 litre of water per hour.

Before the start of the hike, I was thinking back to the trek that I did in Thailand. You know, the one that I almost passed out on, and I was praying that this would not happen again.

Fortunately, the Kings Cannon only had one section at the beginning that was a steep incline. The rest of the hike had gradual inclines and declines. But we were hiking on loose rocks instead of a nice flat trail so I had to be careful with each step. The last thing that I wanted to happen was a sprang ankle.

The scenary was magnificent. I was surprised at how physically good I felt. At the beginning of the hike, I drenched myself with water to cool down and this was before the hike even started. You can easily get into trouble here without preperation. A helicoptor ride from the cannon to the car park cost 800 dollars and the helicoptor ride to Alice Springs hospital costs well over 1000 dollars. So you definitely don't want to get in trouble here.

Half way into the hike, we stopped for a quick dip in the cannon pool. That felt so good. Everyone was overheating and the cool water was refreshing. Before we started the hike again, I drenched myself once more.

In one area, we had to crawl to the edge of the cliff because our guide didn't want to do any paper work in case one of us falls over the cliff and goes splat.

At the end of the hike, I was able to go through only 2 litres of water. My feet was a bit sore, but I was so happy that did it without complications. I guess my body was not as feeble as I thought it was. I felt good!

We drove for ages before reaching our bush camp. It was 8pm by the time we got there. I volunteered to be on cooking duty so that I didn't have to do the dishes afterwards. I was partly in charge of the meat dish, beef and beans. We also had 2 vegi pots and a pot of rice. We used the bush method to cook all the dishes.

Dinner was so delicious. I ate so much. Especially since lunch was only a small sandwich and an apple. With the amount of exercise we did today, we needed to consume more food.

I slept in a swag for the first time. It's a bag with a mattress on the bottom. Then you put the sleeping bag inside the swag. So you can look up and see the stars. It was so hot this night, I slept with just my silk liner. I think I managed to get about 4.5hrs of sleep. We got up at 5:30am the next day.

Say tooned for some pictures later. I need to get them off my camera first.