28/11/07 - Another early start today to start a 2 day tour up to the Alice Springs. A long drive up to Coober Pedy today which would be our home for the night. Our tour guide Tony showed us some of the sites on the way up but the main activity was trying to get some sleep on the bus but failing misserably, especially when one of the tyres burst which set us back about 2 hours. Coober Pedy was an interesting little town of about 2000 people and it looked like a bomb site because of all the mining. Its the biggest supplier of Opals in the world. Our bed for the night turned out to be in the side of a hill. A hole in the cliff with some beds shoved in. The evening consisted of some pizza and a few beers in only pub called the The Cave.

29/11/07 - Up early again for no apparent reason other than Tony needed to buy a spare tyre, couldn't we have stayed asleep!! A quick visit to the opal mine / shop and it was back on the road. I thought I found an opal but was most upset when I was told it was only gypsum and you need a ton of it to make 500 bucks so may 1 gram wasn't even worth 5 cents. ah well. Passed the border and entered the Northern Territory and we already noticed the heat difference heading north. Luckily one of stops in the middle of nowhere had a swimming pool and we jumped in fully clothed and was almost completely dry again within about 15 mins. After a few more stops for petrol and lots more snacks down the hatch we arrived at Alice Springs just in time to hit Malenkas for the buffet and free jugs and see a reptile show. Made friends with a nice big snake.

30/11/07 - Shocker another early morning (5.45am, which turned out to be relatively late compared to the next few days) for the start of our 3 day Rock 'n' roll tour of ayres rock, the olgas and kings canyon. Got on the tour bus and everyone was made to introduce themselves over the microphone. It was a pretty long drive to our camp near Ayres Rock but got to ride a camel on the way which was a nut crushing experience to say the least. Then it was on to the Culture Centre next to Ayres Rock. After that we headed for The Olgas was very impressive and we did a smallish walk through one of the Gorges in the 46 degree heat which we later found out was about 60 degrees because of the heat coming off the rocks as well. No wonder I was sweating uncontrollably and two of our group got heat stroke. After the walk Jonny, Mike, Tom and I thought we'd celebrate surving the walk with a beer. Bad idea. We got a roasting as it was Aborigonal Country and if one of the Rangers caught us that would have been a 5000 dollar fine each!! Still everyone survived and we avoided the fine and made it back to Uluru for sunset. We then went to the campsite for the night where we were given a nice surprise - we had to be up at 3.45am!! WHAT!! Slept under the stars tonight which was quality as theres very little pollution so you see so many more stars and shooting stars than back home.

1/12/07 - I don't think i've ever seen this hour unless i've been coming back from town. The start of a very long day!! Left camp at 4.30am and headed to Uluru for sun rise, which was nice but I think I would have appreciated a bit more had I had more sleep. Then we had a nice 9.4km walk around the base of Uluru which was a heck of lot easier than the 10km walk along the Great Wall of China. 32 degrees at 8am thats not a good sign its gonna be another hot one! After that it was another long drive heading to Kings Canyon campsite. Collected some fire wood and had a little game of cricket by the side of the road and was once again sweating a ridiculous amount. At least there was a pool at our resort which we could look forward to. Our tour guide Emma was only training and was under the watchful eye of Bonnie, but she passed so we celebrated by pushing her in the pool fully clothed and covered her in beer. Such nice people we are. A fun night cooking our food on the camp fire and watching the sunset from the hill whilst being watched by a dingo in the bush. oooo. Slept under the stars again today only difference this time it was in a sand storm. Wake up with a mouthfull, earfull and eyefull of sand. Nice!! Oh and we'd been given another surprise.

2/12/07 - Yep you guessed it the surprise was another 4am start. But after about 2 hours sleep this was the worst and longest day in the history of my life. A 7.6km walk around the rim of King's Canyon was the mornings activity. The canyon was awesome. On the way we went for a aswim in the Garden of Eden. This was at the base of the canyon and it was nasty. Its known as the Cesspool which we found out after when we got out and smelt like sewage!! Only the usual 4 fools got involved. After the awesome scenary it was back to the pool and time for some Burritos at 10am - still morning. I swear time stays still here. After that it was back on the road heading for Alice Springs. Not matter whenever we asked someone what the time was it always seemed to be morning. Anyways on the way back we played a little game on the bus - the classic boys versus girls - we had to make up 10 questions for the girls and they did the same for us and choose a forefit for the other team. Of course the boys won!!! Our forefit for the girls was we got total use of everything in their suitcases and we'd pick thier clothes and do thier make up etc and they had to stay like that for the whole night!! Ha ha ha sorry ladies!! We did a very good job of making them look ridiculous and it was an awesome night.

3/12/07 - When am I going to get a full nights sleep!! Up at 8am this morning because I hadn't altered the time on my phone, still at least we were early and not late for our flight. Flew back to Melbourne and thats it. A quality tour!! Tomorrow we head to St Kilda.