The day after Passover Seder we went on a tour to see the jumping crocodiles. The area of north Australia is full of salt water crocodiles, the biggest and the most dangerous of all crocodiles types. It length can get up to 8 meters. So what Australians do with this "resource"? There are many crocodiles farms where these animals grown for their skin and meat, and in the national parks several companies provide boat tours to see them. Since crocodiles live underwater these companies found a way to make them come out of the water: a piece of meat is being tide to a fishing rod hanging in the air above the crocodile head, the crocodile jumps in order to catch the meat. That's how you get to see these ugly giant animals.
We saw 4 crocodiles, some of them were missing a few extremities. They are so aggressive they even try to eat and attack each other.
Our next stop was Katherine Gorge national park. We walked a few tracks there. The most impressive one was Butterfly Gorge.
The next destination was Alice Springs, only 1200kms south... It took us 2 days to get there, not before replacing a tyre that gone flat.We arrived to the city on Friday and met there the Habad guys from Passover Seder (they told us they were going to spend the weekend in Alice), we had a Kidush and spent few hours talking with them. They are really nice guys.The next morning we continued towards THE most touristic attraction of Australia - Ayers Rock (Uluru), a giant rock in a size of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. It is located 450kms southwest of Alice. We arrived there the next day just on time to see the last minutes of the sunrise. The place was already crowded with hundreds of people from all around the world. Few minutes later everybody left the sunrise lookout (most of the people came with bus tours) and we had the place for ourselves.
A good breakfast, 100 photos and we headed to the rock, for a closer look. We planned to climb on the rock, but the track was closed due to strong winds. We decided to go for a different 10kms track which surrounds the rock.
We were busy all the way moving the flies away from us, they seemed to be very determent to find out how our eyes, nose and mouth look like from the inside. By the time we finished the walk we saw people climbing on the rock. Apparently the track opened.
5 minutes later we were in the middle of a steep climbing. All along the way to the top there were metal cables attached to the rock, helping to climb without falling backwards... According to the aboriginal believe the top of the rock is sacred, and climbing on it is actually forbidden. Still, hundreds of people do it every day, including us...When we got to the top we realized how huge is the rock, you can walk on the top forever.
Not far from Uluru located another rocky attraction, less known, Kata Tjuta. This place consists of several huge rocks and you can travel between them.
We were quite tired at that point and couldn't stand the flies anymore so we did only a short walk.
Hoping we got rid of the flies we continued the next morning to Kings Canyon national park. Of course millions of flies welcomed us as we opened the car door... A desperate situation led to desperate solution:
The canyon landscape was interesting, beautiful and worth the effort of looking ridiculous :)
We hiked there for few hours and then started driving the way back to Alice Springs.
The next day about 100kms before Alice the car broke down. The radiator cracked. We had to call for a towing service. The car was towed to the most amateurish garage we have ever seen. It took them 4 days to order, receive and install a new radiator! We had to spend 4 long long days in Alice, which is, to be honest, not the most interesting place in Australia. Meanwhile, the weather got worse. It was raining heavily, the all city was flooded and roads closed. Finally we got our car back and continued with our plans - West MacDonnell national park. We drove about 60kms west to Alice and had to turn back because the road was flooded. We spent enough time in Alice and the last thing we wanted was spending one more night there... Therefore we decided to skip on West MacDonnell national park and keep going north to Cairns.
The bad weather accompanied us for 2 more days. We spent the second night in Devils Marbles national park which probably looks nicer on a sunny day...
It took us 3 more nights to get to Cairns, on the north of the east coast. In all 3 rest areas we spent the nights in we had the company of small frogs...
We really believe all this bad luck came upon us only because we climbed on the sacred Uluru rock.
Cairns is very popular city due to its closeness to the Great Barrier Reef. We decided to take an overnight cruise in order to spend maximum time on the reef (you don't get to see much on a day tour). It was an excellent decision. The boat was very nice and comfy, our room was great, the food was excellent and most important the reef was amazing. This time we hired an underwater camera.On the first day we saw many many colorful fish and corals, spent hours in the water, snorkeling.
As it got darker, the boat's lights attracted many fish, which attracted many sharks, big ones. The divers on the boat went for a night dive. We watched them from a safe spot on the boat. It wasn't the best time for an introductory dive with all these sharks hanging around... Roi was really curious to see how a shark looks like in the water, so he grabbed a snorkel mask prayed for the best and put his head under the water. Those sharks don't attack people and they are not dangerous, but still...
The next morning we got a wake up call at 6am, half an hour later we were in the water, snorkeling and seeking for a sea turtle (they seem to be the morning type, we've been told). Few minutes later one showed up.
Sarit was so excited, she didn't left him for a long long time. At some point Roi had enough and went back to the boat. Sarit stayed in the water, chasing the turtle until she was too far from the boat and the only one who left in the water... We had a lovely breakfast on the boat, then the skipper led us to a different location and we were back in the water. This time we decided to try an introductory dive. It was very interesting experience, but we didn't get to see much, because we focused on the diving techniques most of the time.
The next snorkeling was right before lunch, few minutes in the water and we saw a second sea turtle, another chase and dozens photos more.
Sarit even saw few reef sharks, smaller than those who visit us at night.
We saw 4 crocodiles, some of them were missing a few extremities. They are so aggressive they even try to eat and attack each other.
The next destination was Alice Springs, only 1200kms south... It took us 2 days to get there, not before replacing a tyre that gone flat.We arrived to the city on Friday and met there the Habad guys from Passover Seder (they told us they were going to spend the weekend in Alice), we had a Kidush and spent few hours talking with them. They are really nice guys.The next morning we continued towards THE most touristic attraction of Australia - Ayers Rock (Uluru), a giant rock in a size of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. It is located 450kms southwest of Alice. We arrived there the next day just on time to see the last minutes of the sunrise. The place was already crowded with hundreds of people from all around the world. Few minutes later everybody left the sunrise lookout (most of the people came with bus tours) and we had the place for ourselves.
A good breakfast, 100 photos and we headed to the rock, for a closer look. We planned to climb on the rock, but the track was closed due to strong winds. We decided to go for a different 10kms track which surrounds the rock.
We were busy all the way moving the flies away from us, they seemed to be very determent to find out how our eyes, nose and mouth look like from the inside. By the time we finished the walk we saw people climbing on the rock. Apparently the track opened.
5 minutes later we were in the middle of a steep climbing. All along the way to the top there were metal cables attached to the rock, helping to climb without falling backwards... According to the aboriginal believe the top of the rock is sacred, and climbing on it is actually forbidden. Still, hundreds of people do it every day, including us...When we got to the top we realized how huge is the rock, you can walk on the top forever.
Not far from Uluru located another rocky attraction, less known, Kata Tjuta. This place consists of several huge rocks and you can travel between them.
We were quite tired at that point and couldn't stand the flies anymore so we did only a short walk.
Hoping we got rid of the flies we continued the next morning to Kings Canyon national park. Of course millions of flies welcomed us as we opened the car door... A desperate situation led to desperate solution:
The canyon landscape was interesting, beautiful and worth the effort of looking ridiculous :)
We hiked there for few hours and then started driving the way back to Alice Springs.
The next day about 100kms before Alice the car broke down. The radiator cracked. We had to call for a towing service. The car was towed to the most amateurish garage we have ever seen. It took them 4 days to order, receive and install a new radiator! We had to spend 4 long long days in Alice, which is, to be honest, not the most interesting place in Australia. Meanwhile, the weather got worse. It was raining heavily, the all city was flooded and roads closed. Finally we got our car back and continued with our plans - West MacDonnell national park. We drove about 60kms west to Alice and had to turn back because the road was flooded. We spent enough time in Alice and the last thing we wanted was spending one more night there... Therefore we decided to skip on West MacDonnell national park and keep going north to Cairns.
The bad weather accompanied us for 2 more days. We spent the second night in Devils Marbles national park which probably looks nicer on a sunny day...
It took us 3 more nights to get to Cairns, on the north of the east coast. In all 3 rest areas we spent the nights in we had the company of small frogs...
We really believe all this bad luck came upon us only because we climbed on the sacred Uluru rock.
Cairns is very popular city due to its closeness to the Great Barrier Reef. We decided to take an overnight cruise in order to spend maximum time on the reef (you don't get to see much on a day tour). It was an excellent decision. The boat was very nice and comfy, our room was great, the food was excellent and most important the reef was amazing. This time we hired an underwater camera.On the first day we saw many many colorful fish and corals, spent hours in the water, snorkeling.
As it got darker, the boat's lights attracted many fish, which attracted many sharks, big ones. The divers on the boat went for a night dive. We watched them from a safe spot on the boat. It wasn't the best time for an introductory dive with all these sharks hanging around... Roi was really curious to see how a shark looks like in the water, so he grabbed a snorkel mask prayed for the best and put his head under the water. Those sharks don't attack people and they are not dangerous, but still...
The next morning we got a wake up call at 6am, half an hour later we were in the water, snorkeling and seeking for a sea turtle (they seem to be the morning type, we've been told). Few minutes later one showed up.
Sarit was so excited, she didn't left him for a long long time. At some point Roi had enough and went back to the boat. Sarit stayed in the water, chasing the turtle until she was too far from the boat and the only one who left in the water... We had a lovely breakfast on the boat, then the skipper led us to a different location and we were back in the water. This time we decided to try an introductory dive. It was very interesting experience, but we didn't get to see much, because we focused on the diving techniques most of the time.
The next snorkeling was right before lunch, few minutes in the water and we saw a second sea turtle, another chase and dozens photos more.
Sarit even saw few reef sharks, smaller than those who visit us at night.
We snorkeled few more times and eventually came back to Cairns, happy and satisfied.
We spent few more days in the city, managed to sell most of the equipment we bought in Australia, returned our lovely car to its owners and took a flight to Sydney.Probably our next and last post will be written in Israel. See you soon!
