Living next door to Alice... if you can call over 400km’s next door (and up here... you can!)

Right now I am living in the shadow of the Rock – Uluru. And I mean literally, not figuratively! I step outside and see Ayers Rock! How many people actually do this?? Excitement plus!

Mel and Elle came to visit us in Alice Springs for 5 days... and it rained... for 4 days out of the 5 that they were here. DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to show Mel and Elle such a good time, and it rained and rained and rained. At least (and this is a very minimal ‘at least’) Mel got to see the Rock as only 9% of people get to see it – with waterfalls on it! Little Elle, so cute, she so totally looks like Shiloh (Brad and Angelina’s daughter!)

The day after Mel left, we were staying at Amanda’s place as I was feeding her cat and Amanda said we could stay at her place (she was in Melb for a week) and that her housemate would not be home until the 28th. Kristy and I had settled in for a good, comfortable night. Picture this... I had done a few loads of washing, wet clothes spread all over the place to dry, some clothes still in the washing machine, a roast chicken (and vegies) were cooking nicely in the oven, a DVD was ready to go in the DVD player, the little heater was on, we had a soggy, soaking wet tent under the carport, our cold food was in the fridge, our breakfast shakes were ready on the counter for tomorrow, Kristy and I in our flannelette PJ’s (mine have blue owls on them!), my hair very fluffy (from a recent shower and I hadn’t bothered to use hair product), our stuff was spread out throughout the unit (as we thought we had a few days to sort through it), I am sipping a wine (of course), listening to the rain pouring down outside, when... all of a sudden... the housemate comes home. Aside from renting a room to Amanda, he used to be (I think) her boss. He also seemed quite arrogant, but he could have been just very tired from being on the road for ages.

To cut a long story short – he did not make us feel very comfortable for being in the unit. He had arrived home early from a tour, with friends, who were going to stay in Amanda’s room (where we were staying!!), and there was really nothing else to do but for us to leave. I was most unimpressed and put out that we had to pack up everything within 30 minutes, tote it all out to the car (in the rain) and drive off into the night, with no fixed idea of where to go! I was very tired, so I did what any self-respecting, tired, cold, hungry (the roast chicken had been thrown in a bowl and put in the back of the van) Leo woman would do – yes, that’s right, I burst into tears. Kristy was really nice to me (as always). She pulled the van over, patted my hand, and we searched on the internet for a cheap place to stay, but there was nothing available.

In the end, i telephoned the caravan park (G’Day Mate Caravan park) where we had previously stayed and they were soooooo nice, and even though they were packed out, they squeezed us in (when we arrived at the caravan park, David – the owner – came out to meet us, and he took one look at me and said, “So, you’ve had a hard night sweetie”). David set us up on a really good site, but still, we spent another hour sorting out the stuff we had thrown in the van (we had to sort it out so we could sleep on the bed in the van!) and then we ate the chicken and vegies, and they cold and not very nice. But at least we were not sleeping on the side of the road (thank you David and Allen at G’Day Mate)!

Did I make that whole story sound fun??? I hope so, because in reality, it wasn’t very fun at all! However it is fun to think about days later!

Finally, the next day, it stopped raining, and so we were able to dry off the tent and really get ourselves organised to head to Yulara, because KRISTY GOT A JOB! Yes, Kristy is working for AAT Kings, with the tour buses. We arrived here yesterday and she started work tonight. It appears that she will be home about 3am this morning! She has texted me, and she sounds like she likes the job, but oh my, she will be tired when she gets back here.

So... what is ‘home’ now? Well, when you work at Yulara, you are given accommodation. We are paying rent, which works out to be $80 per week each, and that includes water and electricity. We are renting in what is called ‘share-share’, as we share a kitchen and bathroom with one other person. We have a small lounge room and bedroom to ourselves – which gives us a good amount of privacy. We have a heater in here, and an airconditioner – essential in the desert! We purchased for ourselves a little TV which has a built in DVD player. Kristy has watched a lot of football since we got here.

Being a resident here (and I am classed as a resident because my partner works here) means we have other entitlements, for eg, the gym is $6.00 a week to join, we get free medical AND free medication, and because it is classed as a remote area, we get free university (I am looking into this tomorrow!). We also get 5% off the cost of groceries at the supermarket (this is not really a big deal, but it is something). There is also the ‘Residents Club’ which offers cheap alcohol and meals (eg, $10 roast on a Sunday).

Last night, we went over to Garry’s apartment. Garry is Kristy’s boss. He invited a number of other people over to meet Kristy and myself, and it became a bit of a party. Garry made home-made bread, and kept dishing out the wine and beer, it was fun to meet people! Everyone was so nice (especially the woman that had stabbed someone 10 years ago, I just looooove stories like that!!). Garry has been living in Yulara for about 9 months, he moved here because he had a brain tumour removed and because of that he realised that he wanted more from his life rather than work work work. He is still working (obviously) up here, but he is no longer running a huge business. It was a big wake up call for him, and though I didn’t know him before the brain tumour, I can honestly say that he looks pretty happy and relaxed now.

Kristy and I went for a walk this morning, I am trying to lose weight before Mel’s wedding in October, so I am gonna walk my ass off. We had the Rock in our view for 90% of the walk. We walked past a couple of guys who were walking their dogs – two dingo’s which were hand-raised from puppies. We came back and Bugs Bunny was sitting on the red earth out the front of our apartment. I have put on two lots of sunscreen today. Is fun being in the desert! I think I will like Yulara, for a while at least, until the next segment of the travels.