Central Australia Tour 2025

The Year 10 Central Australia and NT Tour took place in the last two weeks of Term 3.

The group of 25 eager students and 3 excited staff met at 5:30am at the school on Monday 8th September and quickly headed to Melbourne Airport for our morning flight to Yulara Airport, near Uluru. We spent the afternoon learning about bush foods and acclimatizing to the weather before a thunderstorm came through the area, forcing us to sleep under the roofs of the kitchen shelters for the night.

The following 11 days was an adventure spanning over 2350km of travel from Uluru to Kakadu and onto Darwin – visiting Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjutu (the Olgas), hiking the rim walk around King’s Canyon in Watarrka National Park, trekking through Standley Chasm and spotting rock wallabies in Simpson’s Gap and coming face to face with an olive python (aka ‘The Rainbow Serpent’) in Alice Springs. The swimming pools at all of the accommodation we stayed at was certainly a highlight for the students, apart from the emergency first aid due to the high chlorine levels in the Alice Springs pool!In Alice Springs we visited the School of the Air, the Desert Park animal sanctuary and  the Earth Sanctuary, where we went for an astronomy night tour on the outskirts of Alice Springs. This was followed by a couple of long drives heading north between Alice Springs and Katherine, including a surprise rescue operation of a mobile phone lost in the bottom of a drop-toilet at our lunch stop at Karlu Karlu (The Devils Marbles).

In Katherine we were fortunate enough to go on the two gorges boat cruise up Katherine Gorge before making our way into Kakadu and seeing the wetlands by boat at sunrise. 

Our tour finished up in Darwin with a jumping crocs boat cruise down the Adelaide River and a final dinner at the Mindil Beach Markets before heading back to the airport for our return flight at 2am! We made it back to school by9am on the last day of term, bleary eyed and ready for a well-earned rest.

Many thanks to Miss McDermott and Miss Ebner-Bowes for all of their hard work and dedication (and sometimes literally blood, sweat and tears) on tour. A big shout out also to all the students for making the trip an amazing experience.

Joshua Pearce