Going North (Sydney to Alice Springs)

Yes, I’m back, sans Jayne. Bushwalking is not her thing, but it is David’s, so the first born and I are off on our annual (major) trek. Going North as Missy Higgins might sing. Have a listen. This time to the Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory on a guided trek with Trek Tours Australia. This post is a transit day so to break up the text I’ve included a few photos from the walk. There was precious little connectivity on the trail so this is being put together on our return.

Weekend trackwork, and the resultant closure of the Airport line, encouraged an alternate transport plan. I had already declined Jayne’s generous offer to drive me to the airport. Dave’s trip in from suburbia now involved buses and a train and would take around 2 hours. The new plan saw Dave train it into the city on Friday night to stay with us and Jayne would drive us to the airport on Saturday morning.

Holly Grevillea

My platinum status as a Qantas frequent flyer was going to expire at midnight on Sunday. Saturday morning would be my last time to enjoy the Business Lounge for most domestic flights. Although Jayne and I are flying business class to Perth in August.

Qantas has not been my friend for some time now and overseas flights with Qatar, Singapore and Vietnam has cruelled any chance of maintaining platinum status. That said all went well on this leg of the journey. The traffic was light, baggage drop was smooth and the security check was fast and efficient. The Business Lounge wasn’t overly busy and a toasty and coffee readied us for the 3 hour flight to the Alice.

The wide open spaces of Ormiston Pound.

Today is my first experience of Qantas’ new method of boarding in zones. They have finally joined the civilised ranks of other international airlines. We are Zone 1 and first onto the plane and into our exit row seats. The boarding process worked well and we were in the air and heading to Alice Springs on schedule.

The flight was uneventful and relatively smooth. The head of Customer Service dropped by for a chat (courtesy of my soon to be expired platinum status) and said he would catch up with us on the return flight to see how we enjoyed the trek.

Our taxi driver to the hotel channelled Lewis Hamilton and was clearly frustrated by other cars observing the speed limit. We were at the Double Tree by Hilton for both ends of the trip and happily our room was ready when we arrived at 1pm.

As we sorted our gear for tomorrow’s first day of the trek, we discovered we were walking 70kms over the six days, not the 110kms I read about in a previous email. Neither of us was sure whether to be pleased or disappointed.

The forecast for day one was rain and we had around six hours of walking in front of us. In that time we would only cover around 8kms. Clothes and packs were reorganised for our 7:30am pick up.

We dined at the inhouse restaurant. They were very busy and service was slow. The food was ok but nothing to get excited about.