Hi there everyone!! Kerry and Darren here with another exciting story of our adventures in good ol' Australia, to make you all jealous on this lovely Monday morning. We have covered a MASSIVE distance since we last updated you and I will try to elaborate on some of the things that we have been up to.

Friday 18th May

Today was a great day. We saw the Devil's Marbles in the morning, which are incredible to look at. They look like they are going to roll away, as they are perfectly rounded, and yet they are steady as a rock, or so to speak! They are called the Devil's Marbles because they are so large and because of their red colouring. Darren practised his best Spiderman impression and clambered up into the spaces in between the marbles. I tried to but I'm obviously more weak, as I couldn't climb up properly. We have got some wicked photos, that we will update as soon as we reach an internet cafe that allows you to upload photos. Further along the road we saw a signpost for 'Australia's answer to Area 51', at Wycliffe Well, which we thought sounded cool so we turned off. The sight actually turned out to be no more than an expensive petrol station (charging $1.79 a litre) with a few plastic aliens outside it!! Anything for an extra sell. Later in the afternoon we reached Alice Springs, which is a really lovely town nestled in the McDonnell Ranges. Alice looks dwarfed by the magestic mountains, however when you walk around the town you are instantly captured by the Aboriginal Art everywhere, even on dustbins, and the laid back attitude. We drove up to Anzac Hill, a lookout in the town from which you can see the whole area. Alice reminded us slightly of Las Vegas in Nevada as it is a busy area, set in an extremely remote part of Australia. In the evening we went to a famous saloon bar called Bojangles for a drink. The bar itself was our favourite yet as the decor was excellent! There was a big Ned Kelly statue, cowboy boots all over the ceiling, cow hide bench covers, fake door handles (so that you pushed the wrong side of the door and made yourself look like an idiot) and you got free monkey nuts, the shells from which you had to throw on the floor so it looked like a proper western saloon.

Saturday 19th May

Today we drove passed Mount Connor, which is reminiscent of Uluru except that it is more grey and flatter on the top. We thought that it was really impressive until the real Uluru, or Ayer's Rock as most know it, came into view. The way that the orange rock juts from the flat terrain is spectacular. It looks so out of place among the bush surroundings. We reluctantly paid the $50 to get into the park; a cost which we thought was too much for just an entrance fee into a National Park as most are free to visit. We pitched our tent up for the first time in ages, a task that Darren hates, in a village resort called Yulara and then headed back to the Visitor Centre where we watched a video and read some literature on the local Aboriginal people's beliefs. Darren and I made it to the sunset viewing area at around 5pm, by which time there were quite a few photography enthusiasts waiting to see the big rock change colours with the different phases of the sun. It is hard to describe in words how the rock's colour surrenders to the sunset, changing from a light orange, to dark orange, almost red, then finally under the looming night it turns grey. Every slight colour change warranted a photo so I ended up taking hundreds!! Still, we may only get the chance to come here once so the more photos the merrier. In the evening we retired back to the campsite and cooked dinner while watching Pirates Of The Caribbean on the TV.

Sunday 20th May

How am I going to put into words one of the best days of our lives? This is going to be a challenge in itself! We woke up early and took a 10km drive around the base of Uluru. The Aboriginal poeple had requested that visitors do not climb Ayers Rock as 35 people have died in the past 20 years attempting it and when a person dies their spirit is left at the site, which mixes with their spirits in their sacred land. We initially weren't going to attempt the climb but when we saw the expression on peoples faces as they made their last descent from the climb I decided to persuade Darren that we had to do the climb too, as it looked exhilarating. Thankfully I got my own way and with water in a back pack we headed to the climb. To help people they have a chain, that people can cling to as you climb up the rock. This however is set quite a way up the rock so you have to prove that you can climb well before you even get to it. This is to stop people that may be unfit from climbing it. I didn't realise how strenuous the climb would be and was thankful for our proper walking trainers as it was slippery and really steep. When we were half way up the hill we noticed that two girls behind us were struggling as they were dressed in only tiny black vest top and hot pants (it was about 34 degrees), had no water on them and had flat soled Nike trainers on. We stopped and shared our water with them and after a few minutes we were all laughing together and the four of us made our way up together. The girls, from Denmark, were called Eva and Isobella and we all got on brilliantly. The conversation took your mind from the distance still to go to the peak and the height at which we were now at. The chain stops half way up the rock and you have to ascend the rest of the distance with no support. Although it was not at all windy at the base of Uluru it was extremely windy at the top and at one point Eva felt herself get blown by the wind so we all had to do parts of the journey on our hands and knees. When we finally reached the summit we took some silly photos of each other and spent a long while taking in the superb 360 degree view across the desert, taking in the distant Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Mount Connor. Making it to the top gave us a sense of achievement and the adrennelin rush was amazing. The descent wasn't as hard as we thought it would be, although it was windy until we reached the chain again. When we all finally made it to the bottom we noticed that the climb had been closed due to severe windy conditions!!!! No surprise that we all found it windy then! We swapped email addresses with the lovely Eva and Isobella. It turned out we had seen the girls the day before in their old yellow camper van with "Hot Danish" written on it, which was struggling up Anzac Hill in Alice Springs at no more than 5km an hour! We remembered laughing at them and thankfully they saw the funny side and laughed too. After the climb we headed to Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas as we know them for the sunset. Kata Tjuta means Many Heads in Aboriginal and the area is aptly named as it is a variety of rocks, some taller than Ulura, jutting from the desert like many heads out of the body of the Earth. The sunset was impressive, maybe as much so as at Ulura the previous night. Kata Tjuta too turns many shades of orange before finally turning grey with the disappearance of the sun. We then got on the road and stopped at a rest stop and talked for ages about the day, which seemed to last forever. It was definitely one of the best days of my life and I know that Darren feels the same way too.

Monday 21st May

We drove the 300kms to King's Canyon today and did a walk to a tranquil spot by it's base. The canyon was created over the course of 20 million years and it's huge form looks more impressive due to the brightness of it's orange colour. We sat there in awe for a while and took in the serenity (in between taking photos of course) and watched wild budgerigars flying around. After visiting Kings Canyon we drove a long way and camped right on the South Australian border! We saw the most amazing sunset tonight! The shades of pink were practically flourescent! We cooked in the dark which was fine until Darren found a big moth in his dinner, which put him off eating chilli for life! Ha ha. I found it funny...

Tuesday 22nd May

We properly crossed the South Australia border today which is a strange feeling as we left this state 5 months ago! The desert out here is even more remote and arid than the Northern territory's desert. The soil is a brighter shade of red and the terrain is flatter. After a while we passed some of the 1,000 opal mines in the local area. The areas of dirt dug from the ground look like white pyramids and contrast with the colour of everything else. We arrived in a mining town called Coober Pedy at around midday. The town was purposely built for the opal miners and it to say that it resembles the end of the world would be an understatement! In fact it came as no surprise to discover that the majority of Mad Max III was filmed here! Although there are tourist attractions there (namely the mines and museums) it is not a place that you would call beautiful! We went to a 'scenic lookout' from which you could see nothing scenic at all, just mines, dirt and dust, and the entrance to underground buildings and homes. The buildings here were built underground as it gets really hot in the summer and it is an efficient way of keep their homes cool. There are even underground hotels and also a church. After leaving Coober Pedy we passed the 'The Wild Dog Barrier Fence' (previously called the Dingo Barrier Fence). Completed in the 1950's this is the longest fence in the world, one of the largest man-made structures in the world and originally spanned 5,600km!! It's sole purpose is to protect sheep from being attacked by dingoes. Originally the graziers were responsible for maintaining the fence, but with drought and changes in the wool market it didn't take long for the fence to fall into disrepair. In 1982, a $3.6 million state government program was put in place to rebuild and realign 2500 km of the fence. Nowadays the fence is monitored by Rangers, who each look after 50 km of it.

Wednesday 23rd May

On our journey today we watched a huge eagle feasting on some road kill, tearing it apart with its powerful talons and beak. It was like being part of a nature documentary crew. We drove a great distance today. Briefly we stopped at Lake Hart, a big almost-dry lake, although we didn't get out of the car as the area had been invaded by a huge coach full of tourists, eagerly inhabiting the area with their cameras a-ready! Port Augusta, our next stop was the biggest town we have seen since Alice Springs and had some nice buildings but there wasn't too much there to see. We contacted our lovely family in the Adelaide area to let them know that we would be arriving there in the next few days, then we headed off on a detour to the South Flinders Ranges, stopping for the night near a town called Quorn. We spent the night listening to a guy in the neighbouring vehicle murdering the same three chords on his guitar whilst tunelessly warbling away for a period that seemed to span for an eternity. Luckily for us he put the offending guitar away before midnight so we managed to get some sleep! The nights are freezing now, nothing at all like the humid weather in Darwin. Snuggled up in our coffin shaped sleeping bags (I was wearing my combats, jumper, top, woolley hat and socks too!) we nearly froze and woke up longing to switch the cars heater on.

Thursday 24th May

Another fantastic day today! We stopped in the morning at the beautiful little town of Quorn. The town is famous mainly for previously being a main stop on the old Ghan train line to Alice Springs. Today Quorn offers tourists rides aboard the Pichi Richi steam train. Unfortunately for us the next ride was on Saturday and we didn't want to hang around a town for a few days when we are running so short on time left in Australia. After looking around the town, which boasts some stunning buildings dating back to the late 1800's (which is old for Australia) we headed towards the South Flinders Range National Park. Along the way we passed the Kanyaka Homestead ruins and the town of Hawker, which isn't as pretty as Quorn. Upon arriving at the national park we did a beautiful 8km walk at Wilpena Pound, called the Wangarra Lookout, which you can see pictured at the start of this entry. The walk leads up to a lookout in the mountains from where you can see many of the ranges peaks. The area is covered in trees and is reminiscent of parts of Scotland. It was unlike anything else that we had seen in Australia and we were both glad to have taken the detour. We drove back to Quorn, where we spent the night again.

Friday 25th May

Today we continued the leisurely drive through a few pretty towns, including a tiny town called Laura. We headed then to a town called Clare, which is famous for it's wineries. The Clare valley made us feel quite homesick as it is now Winter in South Australia and all of the trees and vines were either bare or turning into russet colours remiscent of autumn at home. Like in the Borossa Valley Darren and I headed to the cellar doors of the wineries to check out their selections of wines. We visited Leasingham and Kilikanoon wineries and tried LOTS of varieties of both red and white wine. It has never taken me a lot to get tipsy so by the end of our second visit I was starting to feel the effects from the alcohol. Thankfully Darren was the designated driver so it didn't matter. We bought a lovely bottle of Reisling wine from the Leasingham winery and celebrated our completion of 'The Big D' in style, at a rest stop on the side of the road just outside the Clare Valley.

Saturday 26th May

Today we arrived in Gawler and had a look around the town, which is far bigger than we remembered it to be. Gawler itself is lovely and has a good selection of shops for a smallish town. We went to car wash to try to get the red dirt off of our car. After a thorough clean the car came out looking as good as when we first picked it up from cousin Keith. As yet we are unsure of how to sell the car and we are hoping that the car company who sold it to us will buy it back. As I used to work for a bunch of cowboys, who called themselves car dealers I am dubious that we'll get a good deal although I keep my fingers crossed. We called my lovely cousins, Andrea and Heather and funnily enough they were in Gawler town centre too, so we all met up and went back to their new 4 bedroom house. They sweetly said that we could stay so we had a fantastic night catching up with them, having a proper meal and showing them all 900 pics on my camera! (They didn't fall asleep once either!)

Sunday 27th May

Today cousin Lynne came to Andrea and Heather's for a coffee. It was nice to see her again. A BAD thing happened today to Darren, bless him. He realised that he left his passport in Darwin Post Office nearly two weeks ago. We obviously need it by the 5th of June as our flights are booked (to leave from Brisbane) to go to New Zealand. He was absolutely gutted and we all spent a while trying to search every nook and cranny in the car in the vain hope that it might turn up. Unfortunately it didn't. Also, as it is a Sunday the Post Office is closed so we couldn't even call them to ask if it had been handed in. We know that we left it there as it was the last place that Darren took it out of the document wallet, as you have to show I.D when you send a photo disk home. We are hoping that it turns up in Darwin tomorrow. In the evening we also got a chance to catch up with Daniel and Monique, who have recently had a gorgeous son called Ethan. They were having a get-together as it is Daniel's birthday tomorrow. They had invited my Auntie Barbara and cousins Diane, John, Josh and Jodie, so it was a big family event. We had a lovely night talking with the family and feeling rather broody after seeing how beautiful little Ethan is. I can't wait to see my sister Jodie's little son Stephen when I get home!

Monday 28th May

Today we have spent the morning frantically making calls to the police in Darwin, the Post Office and the British Consulate. First of all the police station said that they had not had the passport handed in, then when Darren called the Post Office their staff said that they rememberd sending a passport to the Police Station! After a second call to the Police Station it turns out that they 'might have' sent it to the British Consulate, so maybe it will turn up there this week. The issuing of a new one takes 4 weeks so we are praying that it is actually on its way to the High Commission in Canberra. Wish us luck. Please cross your fingers and toes for us and we shall keep you all informed as to whether or not Darren's passport is returned and whether we will need to delay our flights to New Zealand. Take care guys! Miss you all lots! Hooorrrayyyyyy!!!!! We've just had a call whilst I've been writing this and Darren's passport has been found safe and well in the Police Station at Darwin! They will be sending it to us in the next few days!!!!! We are very, very happy and stupid!