In 2017, I spent 4 days in the Red Center with a great group and an amazing guide. I booked a group trip with Emu Run to do three hikes in the desert. It was one of the best and most memorable experiences in my life, and I have some fun anecdotes about sleeping in the desert.
Sleeping In The Desert: Alice Springs
I flew from Sydney to Alice Springs. There, I slept in a hostel that was the departure point for the trip. It was very hot and humid. On my first evening, I was very happy to take a shower! We had to keep it quick because there was not too much water. I took my shower and then started drying myself with my towel. After a while using the towel, I realised that I was no longer drying the water from the shower, but my sweat… It was so humid I had started to sweat immediately after the shower! I decided that I was clean enough and put some clothes on to go to sleep.
In the night, I woke up and went to the toilets outside. That’s when I saw all the bugs. Attracted by the lights, there were these massive bugs flying around. I’m not scared of bugs, but it was unsettling and they were confused and were flying right to me. Later, when I woke up early to depart at 5:45 am, I took some pictures of them. I don’t think I have seen such big bugs in any other place.
Sleeping In The Desert: Red Center – Day One
On our first day in the desert, we went to Uluru and it rained. It’s very rare and yet, here we were, under the rain in the desert. We were actually really lucky, because we could see waterfalls in Uluru. Children were jumping in the water. We envied them a little and continued our hike.
During the night, we slept inside simple buildings made of metal sheets in bunk beds. Despite the rain, it was sooo hot inside and we didn’t sleep much. But no matter how uncomfortable it was, I was having an amazing time: it was a real adventure!
Sleeping In The Desert: Red Center – Day Two
Around The Fire
On this second night, there was no rain. We had gathered wood on the top of the bus, and we made a fire. Our guide told us some stories about the desert and brought a didgeridoo. As you may imagine, many tried it, but I don’t remember anybody being really good at it. 😅
At one point, a group of girls started screaming. We rushed to see if something had happened. There was a scorpion next to them. The guide got really excited and said “That’s great!”. We looked at him thinking that he might be crazy. He went to look for a UV flashlight and showed us what was so great about the scorpion. They glow! He was not scared of the scorpion and said that it wouldn’t attack if we didn’t bother it.
Sleeping In A Swag
It was not raining, so some of us decided to sleep outside, to avoid the heat of the metal buildings. We would sleep in some kind of Australian sleeping bag called a swag. Before going to “bed”, we prepared everything: we left the food in the buildings because dingoes (wild dogs) don’t come if you don’t have food, we traced a circle in the sand around us because snakes don’t like the sensation of a cavity, and followed some other tips given by our guide. We were so happy to sleep in the wind. Some were too scared by animals to sleep outside.
I tried to sleep. But my thighs were close to each other and stuck against the plastic-like texture of the swag. I was sweating so much! It was horrible! Only my face was getting some wind and air. The rest of my body was sweating profusely.
I couldn’t take it! I went back to one building. It was a small one, and I was all by myself. I slept on the bed and on my sleeping bag, there was some air filtering through the nets on the walls. It was so much better. I was a bit scared though, because I saw some dingoes and I was now in the place where the food was. As you can imagine, I didn’t sleep much that night. I was a bit disappointed because I hadn’t slept outside like an adventurer. But it wasn’t because I was scared, it was because I sweated too much.
A Scream In The Night
On that night, I must have slept a little though, because I didn’t hear the guide scream. He told us what had happpened in the morning. He was sleeping on the table, next to the cooking equipment. We had left some of the potatoes we cooked, and the dingoes tried to get them during the night. Apparently, he screamed “You fucking dogs!” in the middle of the night. I’m glad I didn’t hear it, I would probably have been shit scared.
Sleeping In The Desert: Back To Alice Springs
After a hike in Kings Canyon, we went back to Alice Springs. Another sweaty night in the hostel before going back to civilization and discovering Melbourne. Nothing much happened, I guess we were too knackered.
It was a great adventure. I might go back one day. I wish.
To see more photos of Australia, you can visit the gallery Australia.
