The location of the best tour I have done yet! And to think I wasn't going to bother with ULURU!!..

The day I arrived, it was baking and humid 35 and 75% respectively, so I slept in the cool of my very plush air conditioned hostel. Too old for this no sleep lark clearly, I only made it out in the evening to purchase a fly net from Coles and sample a meat feast from Bo Jangles. Croc, Emu, Camel, Buffalo and Kangaroo all on the same plate with a giant heap of mashed potato! Now at least I can say I have tried everything Australian, the camel was a bit chewy but the rest was nice.

Very ignorantly I wasn't really aware how far Uluru actually was from Alice Springs, 6 hours in the adventure tours truck so I would assume about 500km. So a great chance for me to make friends and have some fun on the first day.Let the fun begin… introducing Fiona from Hastings, and Sarah (Canks) and Sarah (Sozza) from York by the end of the 3 days my stomach muscles were killing from laughing so much!! The rest of the tour group I could take or leave and it turns out that they were all very lazy and seemed to think things would do themselves ie: dinner, washing up, unpacking and repacking the van! We were quickly branded the noisy English girls and the rest of the group largely kept their distance, but at least we were having fun, what's the point on coming on hols to be miserable??

Fi, Sozza, Canks and I found amusement in most things even on the mornings when we had to be up a 4.30am!! To give but a few examples from a very long list:

*trying to take jumping photo's infront of ULURU and falling off of the log

* me cooking dinner in the dark, with a headlamp, bikini top and towel on - plus being voted the best nearly naked chef!

* Fi getting a moth stuck in her eye and it flapping around

* Sozza wetting herself from laughing too much (only a little bit)

* Bombarding our tour guide Matt with questions until he could take it no more

* Taking photo's of the Japanese dribble rags as we called them!

All very childish, but much fun!!!

Highlights of the tour for me in addition to my temporary new found friends, were sleeping in SWAGS and the 3.5 hour trek around Kings Canyon. Swags for those who don't know are basically plastic coated sleeping bags that fit a small mattress inside, we just put these down on the red dirt and slept out in the open. Sleeping like this was an amasing experience and with almost no artificial light out here the starts were so bright! The 4 of us slept in a circle with our heads in the middle, mainly to keep us safe from any wildlife that chose to visit.

The rock, ULURU was more impressive than I thought it was going to be and we visited 3 times, once for sunset, sunrise and the 9km walk around the base, sadly it was too windy for the climb! The fly net is officially the best $6 I have spent in Oz, the flies are ridiculous constantly in your face, in your ears, crawling up your nose and trying to get in your mouth. We might have looked stupid but all tourists we encountered without looked longingly at my little black camouflage net!

I was surprised at how different the sides of the rock were, the only pictures I have ever seen make it look like a solid lump but up close there are loads of nooks, crannies and caves. The most impressive being the wave ledge that has been formed over millions of years by water evaporating and then dripping off the roof. Yes, it does rain here sometimes, 250mm per year apparently too much to be classed as desert. It's so dry and dusty we look like we have applied dodgy fake tan up the back of our legs, with that and the fly net we were looking hot!

Kings Canyon and a 4.30am start after a bit too much goon the night before was a struggle! (Goon, nasty cheap boxed wine, 4 litres for $12). Starting with heart attack hill as it's called and a giant climb to the top, the scenery was fab though and well worth the initial pain. I loved it, proved by the amount of photo's I took!!

A farewell night out when we got back, meant I revisited Bo Jangles with friends this time and a random night of drinking and dancing followed.