Yesterday morning we arrived at reception for our eight o'clock pick up to take us to the start of the Acacia Ridge Trail that several people had recommended to us. We were dropped off a few kilometres out from the village and pointed in the direction of the start of the trial and then we were off up the side of the mountain in search of the next marker.

The walk took us along the edge of the ridge where we had to climb over huge boulders and along the rocky pathway before finally leading up to the summit, where we could see across the valley for miles and miles in each direction and as far as the eye could see there were mountains of rock of all different colours. We were in the middle of one of the largest mountain ranges in Australia and we could just about make out the dirt road that we had travelled in on, winding its way through the valley below where it would disappear behind a hill and then reappear further along the floor. We could also see the village below us, although it was now little more than a speck in the landscape. We walked along the top of the ridge for a while as Helen had told us there was a yellow-footed rock wallaby somewhere along the way and after a while we caught a quick glimpse of one before it hopped away behind the rocks.

Once we had rested sufficiently we continued on along the path as we began our descent back into Arkaroola. Here the pathway flattened out a little but we still had to watch our step with the steep drops to the side of us. It has become a recurring theme of many of the walks that we have done that we have had to spend so long looking at the ground to make sure we don't trip or fall over that we have to make sure we stop every now and then or we would never actually see anything that is around us!

When we got back to ground level we were on the outskirts of the village and a few minutes later we were back at the reception area, where Helen was getting on with her first day's work. We had already seen David early in the morning and apparently he was now out digging holes in the road and learning how to change tyres on the machine out here. After all the walking of the last few days we had a lazy afternoon in the guest lounge before the craving for warmth took over and we headed back to the comfort of our heated tent and some dinner.

The final activity of the day was an observatory tour that we had booked ourselves onto for the evening, so around eight o'clock we made our way to the meeting point and were piled onto a four wheel drive bus and on our way up to the observatory. Our guide for the evening was Doug - the owner of the sanctuary and an avid star gazer. However, he wasn't too happy this evening as the moon was quite bright and he really found the moon to be quite boring and saw it as a distraction from the real joys of looking into the night's sky!

When we arrived at the observatory we climbed inside the dome where we formed a circle around a giant telescope in the centre of the room. Despite his dislike for it, the first thing that Doug showed us was the moon as he realised that it was more than likely that none of us had seen it in such detail before. As we looked through the eyepiece of the telescope it was amazing to see the moon in such detail as we could clearly make out the craters on the surface and the Sea of Tranquility, where the first moon landings took place almost thirty years ago.

Once we had all had a look, the telescope was pointed at Jupiter and its moons for our second viewing of the night. Through the eyepiece we could clearly see the patterns on the surface of the planet and several distinct colour bands were visible running horizontally across as well as four of Jupiter's moons that formed a perfectly straight line through the planet. It was so surreal being able to see so clearly an object that is hundreds of light years away and it really did look just like a picture out of an astronomy book. Again everybody got a good look before Doug manoeuvred the telescope once more so that we were looking at objects that in his own words were "far away this time."

This time when we looked through the telescope we could see what at first looked like one big block of white but then as our eyes adjusted we could make out loads if different specks of light, while Doug informed us that we were in fact looking at a collection of one million suns tightly packed together.

We saw a couple more star constellations before our final viewing of some sort of super nova, which showed up a bright green and looked rather like a cell would look under a microscope. Throughout the whole evening we were kept up to date with what we were looking at and of some of the more famous sights and events that have occurred during the last few decades. It was really amazing seeing all of these sights and trying to take in everything that we saw as well as what we were being told and before we realised it, it was time to get back into the bus and make our way back down to the village. After a couple of beers with Helen and David we once again made our way back to our humble home for our last night out in the wilderness.

Once we had packed up and readied the car for the journey this morning, we popped into reception to say goodbye to Helen (David was out mending roads again) and then we were heading back along the dirt roads, only this time we actually got to see what was around us.

After spending the last three nights in the middle of nowhere catching up with some friends and finding out exactly what 'wilderness' means around these parts we are now back in Port Augusta for the evening before we head off up the middle of the country towards Ayers Rock and all that the Red Centre has to offer.