The last day of our tour was a bittersweet one. It was sad because we’d all soon be out of the desert and back into civilization and going our separate ways, but it was nice to think that soon we’d be back into civilization with hot showers, washing machines, and chocolate chip cookie ice cream saucers!

We started off the morning right with pancakes, bacon, and eggs for brekky!

We were all feeling a little silly today…

Mad skills!

Most of our day consisted of driving but we did make a few stops along the way. We first went for a short walk at Glen Helen, where I took some ‘soon to be goodbye’ photos:

    

Here are the girls!

And the guys…

I also heard – but did not see – a cockatiel calling out to it’s flock during this walk. It would have been cool if I saw one in the wild, but I could definitely recognize the call. My cockatiel Mika had used it enough!

Here we are on our last lunch break. First the girls. Notice how elegantly we eat:

And now the guys. Eating with their feet?

During lunch, we filled out the normal ‘end of tour’ paperwork where you had the chance to tell them how wonderful the trip was and talk about our favorite parts. I was glad that he had us fill it out while we were outside of the car though. Most of other tours made us do it while driving, which is not good for someone who gets motion sickness.

Gus also had us write goodbyes in his journal and I came up with a little poem about the messiness of the back seat of our 4WD. That messy back seat had really ticked him off!

There once was a tour guide named Gus
When the backseat was messy he made a fuss
It was cleaned by Christine
till it was shiny and gleamed
and then he was so happy with us.

And finally, we made one last stop before getting to Alice Springs to a pretty little lake.

Here I am!

This was our last group picture together before Alice. Remember how clean shaven the guys were for the picture from the first day?

Well guys, that’s it! The end of the trip. We drove to Alice Springs and said goodbye to Heading Bush. I still have two more Alice Springs posts to write, and then the post of what I did on my trip to Cairns, but I am getting so much closer to being caught up! I will talk about what I did on the NIGHT of day 10 on the next post, which I will hopefully get to tomorrow.

But here is a quick update on what I’m actually doing in real time. Tomorrow I am going snorkeling on the barrier reef. Monday (the day after tomorrow) I am going white water rafting. I should be back from snorkeling at around 5 tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll get in a couple of posts, There are still four or five posts before I am caught up and can tell you about rafting and snorkeling! Oh, and because I forgot to tell the people who wanted to know (and Kaz reminded me on her comment) the Aussie movie that I watched in Tasmania with the guys I stayed with was called ‘Black Rock’. Also, to anyone that I haven’t yet emailed (which is everyone) I am sorry and as soon as I catch up on my blog posts I will write to you all!

Peace!