Our flight from Sydney to Alice Springs was just under 3 hours and the view out of the window was unreal! Huge mountain ranges and lush green forests gradually disappeared and all we were left with was hundreds of miles of flat red landscape. It went on for over an hour and felt like we were flying over Mars! After we'd arrived at our hostel 'Annie's Place' at around 11am and organised our 3 day outback adventure, we chose to spend the rest of our day exploring the town of Alice Springs by going for a walk. Unfortunately although we keep track of the date we never really know what day it is. Australia shuts down on a Sunday and unbeknownst to us (until we had completed the 15 minute walk to town in the midday heat), yet again we had arrived in a new town, on a Sunday. This meant that everything except the supermarket was closed so we didn't really get a feel for the town. It was quite a nice looking town as it hasn't been completely commercialised so although there are modern shops, some are housed in older buildings. Alice Springs was also the first place where we encountered lots of Aborigines rather than a few here or there. Unfortunately although they are the rightful owners of the land, it is quite clear that they are the 'lower class', a real shame. We somehow survived the walk back to the hostel in heat and sunshine that neither of us have experienced before. In hindsight walking during the hottest part of the day wasn't the brightest idea, but it was the only chance we had to see the town before our early departure the following morning, and it slightly prepared us for what was to come...

We were on the road at 6am for the start of the 5 hour drive to 'The Red Center'. There was just one thing that didn't quite fit the name - it wasn't overly red. The area has received more rainfall than usual over the past couple of months so in fact every tree and plant was doing it's very best to flower and pollinate. This meant we were seeing something that people who have lived in the area all their lives have never seen. Rather than a lot of red sand pierced by lots of spinifex, in between all the spinifex was grass, so in fact we were in 'The Green Centre'. Don't get us wrong, it wasn't lush green grass but it certainly hid the usually dry red surface so we were in fact very lucky in that we were seeing something very rare.

We arrived at the first destination on our itinerary, Kings Canyon, around 11am. It was absolutely scorching and we were advised to fill as many bottles as we could with water as there wasn't any refill points during our impending 6km walk. We had been told about Kings Canyon by a couple of people who had been previously, some of whom had said that they enjoyed it more than Ayers Rock. As nobody really hears about the canyon, when they are taken there on these trips the beauty of it comes as a nice surprise whereas everyone knows what Ayers Rock looks like. As the name suggests, Kings Canyon is a huge canyon with large red rock cliffs forming its walls.

When we booked the trip we knew the places we would be visiting, but it didn't mention exactly what we'd be doing when we arrived. As we mentioned before we had arrived right in the middle of the day, so when we were told we would be embarking on a 6km walk we realised we were about to be tested! We filled up our water bottles, put on our suncream and hats and set off. The first part of the walk was without doubt the hardest part and almost caused many people, including us, to give up and turn back. Fortunately we had been warned that if you could manage the first section (which involved us ascending a few hundred metres up a steep path to get to the top of the canyon walls) then the rest would be 'easy' so we persevered. Getting to the top was extremely difficult and a shock to the system after being sat in a bus for so long! Once at the top we had a brief rest before embarking on our walk around the canyons edge. Halfway through we stopped at a place called 'The Garden of Eden' which was a water hole surrounded by trees and shrubs. It was quite a contrast to the surrounding of the dry rocks and was able to have this 'greenery' thanks to being in the shade for most of the day. Most of us wasted no time in jumping into the cold water, a welcome relief from the heat we'd been walking in. Once we'd dried off, we ascended back up to a point where we were looking down on the water hole and continued our walk back to the bus. We'd made it!

From here we collected some firewood and headed on to our bush camp. It was located literally in the middle of the bush, a small clearing that we'd had to go down a dirt track to get to. There was no toilet, no shelter, just a pit for a fire and space for us all to set up our 'swags' (which are basically an extra layer to go around your sleeping bag) - it was real bush camping. We got the fire going, ate our dinner and lay down in a circle around the fire where we one by one drifted off to sleep under the stars. Being nowhere near any towns meant there was no light pollution, which in turn meant we could see every star in the sky, it was beautiful. Something bettered this though, and it was the fact that while we lay there we were able to see a 'moonrise'! We aren't sure how it works but for some reason it got dark with no moon in the sky, then on the horizon it started to rise. The size of it was striking, we've never seen the moon look so big. An amazing thing to watch.

On day 2 of the trip our first destination was a place called Kata Tjuta, another amazing formation of rocks. Rather than just one rock like Ayers Rock, there were several different ones of all shapes and sizes, with walking trails along the valleys cutting through the rocks. The walk for this morning was 7km, an upgrade on the previous day! We only walked a couple of kilometres before telling our guide that we would turn around and meet everyone back at the beginning. Not only was it a very difficult walk up and down various craters, but Andy's knee was hurting and giving him problems. If we had finished this walk Andy would have had difficulty walking around Uluru which was what we would be doing the following morning and of course that's what we had come to see. The few kilometres we did walk were pretty enough so we didn't feel as though we missed out at all.

After this we headed for our first glimpse of Ayers Rock. We wouldn't be walking around it until the following morning but we were taken to the cultural centre (where you can learn a little more about Uluru and its significance to the Aboriginal people) before heading to the rock itself. We went for a short walk along a section of it where our guide told us the old Aboriginal stories of how the different areas took their shapes and the significance of them today. It was really really interesting and put a different perspective on the place. We always thought the rock went straight down to the ground but close up, the area that connects the rock to the soil is full of caves and dents. We drove away from the rock to an area where we could see the entire thing for sunset. We ate dinner and took photos (including the Christmas card photo that our parents and Grandma will have received) whilst the sun went down. We had a little bit of cloud so it wasn't a perfect sunset but it was still a really nice way to end the day and a great time to sit and watch the rock as it appeared to change shape with the different shadows that appeared.

Whilst collecting firewood later that evening, we decided to lay down in the middle of the road to look at the stars. They were even more spectacular than the evening before, we could see clouds of particles off into space as well as satellites circling us. It was amazing and a highlight of the trip!

Our third and final day had us getting up in the dark at 4.30am as we would be walking the entire circumference (8km) of Ayers Rock at sunrise. Although it was ludicrously early it meant that it was nice and cool for the start of the walk. The sun of the outback really showed its power because the second the sun appeared, it was hot. It didn't matter that it was 6am or that we'd just had a night of chilly darkness, the air became almost instantly hot. Luckily as mentioned earlier, close up the rock isn't a perfect oval so there are areas where you walk inward slightly which provided us with shade every now and again. It took us around 3 hours to walk around the entire thing at a pace where we could still look around and take it all in. It's difficult to describe what makes it special but there is just something about it that makes you just stare at it in wonder.

At the end of our walk we were rewarded with breakfast (yes, we had to walk it on an empty stomach!) before starting the 6 hour drive back to Alice Springs. It had been a brilliant 3 days that felt like the 'real' Australia. Sleeping in swags under the stars for 2 nights, driving for hours and seeing nothing, walking in places that look more like Mars than Earth and hearing all the Aboriginal stories made this a few days not to be forgotten.

The adventure however, wasn't quite over. Back in the UK whilst planning this trip we had decided to travel on 'The Ghan', one of Australia's long distance trains and hailed as one of the best train journeys in the world. We arrived at the train station, saw the train sitting there, and were told it wouldn't be going anywhere today. In fact, it wouldn't be going anywhere for 5 days! Being on a schedule and having accommodation booked in Adelaide meant that their offer of a full refund or a free journey on The Ghan in the future was useless to us, we needed to get to Adelaide! We were so disappointed, we had really been looking forward to this section of the trip, and there was nothing we could do about it. A couple of hours passed before a fleet of coaches appeared outside. Fortunately we were put on the first one, where we remained for our 20 hour journey south. It certainly wasn't as comfortable as a train journey would have been! When we arrived in Adelaide the following morning there was a representative waiting with a letter for each of us containing their offer of a free trip on The Ghan at any time in the next 12 months. Clearly we couldn't take them up on the offer so we had a chat and proposed something else. You see we needed a way to get from Adelaide to Melbourne in a few days and were going to go by train. We hadn't actually bought our tickets yet so we explained that their offer was useless, so could we instead have our free trip on 'The Overlander'. Thankfully for us, they agreed so although we didn't get the original journey we paid for, we did save on buying a ticket for the next journey. Every cloud has a silver lining! Now for a few days in Adelaide...