Alice Springs

There is something about it...

I stayed three nights at Daryl's place, recovering from my West Macdonell adventure. Daryl is an extremely laid-back and funny guy with great dry sense of humor. He used to live in India for 6 years, so he's got handful of stories from that time. And he likes to share them so we had some really interesting conversations.

I got in touch with another CouchSurfer, Sebastian. He's a musician - he plays the piano, didgeridoo and irish whistle - and he's an incredibly interesting and beautiful person. We found out we suit each other very well and quickly became close friends.

He took me to Ellery Creek Bighole. We camped just next to the lake, made a campfire, swam in the lake in the middle of the night, he played didg... Next day he started teaching me how to play it. It was just amazing!

Yesterday, he gave me a didgeridoo as a gift...

He lives with a young couple (Chris & Natasha) and their kid (Harper) and I've been staying at their house since we came back from Ellery. They're all really nice people, the whole house has such a peaceful, friendly atmoshpere - I've had a wonderful time here. Actually, it's been the best time since I'm in Australia. I've met lots of interesting people, got drunk almost every night, watched great aussie movie Priscilla, queen of the desert (highly recommended), watched Sebastian's piano gig, been practising plaing the didg...

Alice Springs itself is a nice little town. It lies between two cliffs, so it's got a beautiful skyline. There's something about this town - even though it's in the middle of desert, I really like it. Actually there must be something about the whole central australia - so many great things have happened to me since I'm here...

As for my further plans, I planned to go to Darwin, visit national parks around and then continue to the east. But unfortunately, the wet season is about to start in nothern (tropical) part of Australia, so I don't really feel like going there right now. I met this guy, Chris (another one), through Sebastian - he's a famous mosaic artist (http://www.mosaicart.com.au/) and he's going to build a mosaic here in the house for Chris and Tash. He's an extremely funny guy and also a big traveler and he's going to travel to Perth, where he lives, through desert (!) in a week or so. He offered me a seat in his car, so I'm gonna join him. I'm not quite sure where I'll go from Perth yet, but I'll figure out something. It's a great opportunity to avoid the wet season, even though it's a big change in my plans (not the first one though, hehe).

I just extended my tourist visa for another 3 months and want to do it once again (although it's awfuly expensive - $250 for each extension - bastards!), so that I have enough time for all the things I wanna see and do here (I'd like to do some volunteering work in an aboriginal community eventually and perhaps some wwoofing).

So I've got one week to explore the area better - I think I'm gonna visit some more places in West Macdonell Ranges and then perhaps go to East ranges too.