A Very Long Day Indeed

We woke up at 6am. It was cold and dark, and we had a four hour drive ahead of us to the airport. We had to go from Ayers Rock to Alice Springs. Once we got to Alice Springs we had to hop on a plane to fly back to Sydney. Once we were in Sydney we had to find the train to Nowra. And once we got to Nowra we had to find a way into Kangaroo Valley.

Here's how the day played out:

Ayers Rock to Alice Springs: 4 hrs

Alice Springs to Sydney: 3 hrs

Sydney to Nowra: 2 hrs

Nowra to Kangaroo Valley: 45 min.

Needless to say it was a long day of travel. It did give us a few good stories to share. You see, before we left for Australia we knew this part of the trip would be a bit tricky. There was no public transit between Nowra and Kangaroo Valley. We needed to get there because we were going on a 3 day kayak trip. We decided to take our chances that if we couldn't find a bus, that we could at least find a taxi. We arrived in Nowra about 8pm at night. It's winter there, so it was already dark. One of my friends went up to a taxi driver to ask about pricing to get us into town. He was a little surprised that we were trying to get to Kangaroo Valley, but offered to take us there for $50 since he lived on that side of the hill.

On the way he told us about how the valley had been flooded and that the most dangerous animal we may encounter in the water would be rabid bass. He also told us about how he used to work as part of the road crew and one time he got covered with leaches. His wife had to pour salt all over him to get them off.

He was true to his word about the price and when his meter hit $50 he turned it off. He helped us try and find a place to stay that night in town. Both hotels we checked said they didn't have a vacancy. Our cab driver said they were probably lying (which we agreed since there were hardly any cars in the parking lots) but that they were just being lazy. Eventually he dropped us off at a car park (kinda like an RV park) and we pitched our tent. It was an adventure just sleeping that night. We had brought a junior two man tent for the trip. We had to fit three adults and three full hiking packs in the tent. Somehow it worked. Finally we ended our very long day of travel about 10pm.