After spending two nights in Annie's Place hostel and a day in Alice Springs, to be honest we were ready for the next leg. We had a heard horror stories from our driver on the way up from Adelaide and I for one was terrified and totally couldn't sleep a wink.

Just as well, as we were up at half 5 the next morning for our trip to uluru!! I had been so excited about this and it was finally here. We left our things in the hostel and took a few bikinis t shirts and toothbrush to go and see my favourite part of australia yet!

We drove for AGES, stopped for breakfast at a camel farm where grego found a parrot who said hello so he was amused for a while telling us all how it didn't even compare to his parrot who can swear! We then did some cheesey 'getting to know you' type activities, stopped for lunch and then carried on our drive to kings canyon. Here was the first of a series of hikes which took us 7 kilometres around the rim of kings canyon after a gruelling 100m climb up heart attack hill in 47 degrees...it was hellish but so worth it. Halfway round the canyon, we walked down to a gorge and swam in a water hole in the garden of eden...amazingly stunning and just incredible that there was water naturally in such a dry place. Back round the rest of the rim and to the coach where we found the 2 frenchies who had managed to get lost before we left the carpark and so missed out on the swimming...boo.

We then got back into the car and drove to our camp for the night, stopping to collect some firewood. By camp for the night, I mean patch of clear ground with evidence of a past fire and a large metal container which held all our swags (mattresses in a bag that u can zip up over your head) which is what we would be sleeping in for the next 2 nights. We cooked up some camel bolognaise, stuffed our faces and settled down to sleep round the fire until 5am when we were up to go see the sunset at ayers rock in the distance.

At this point I have to tell you, the stars in the outback are absolutely stunning. Scooter our guide told us that we were looking into the galaxy rather than out of it being where we were and in addition to absolutely no light pollution in the middle of the outback there where just millions of them...if you get chance...go see them!

Up in the morning...no washing/makeup/getting changed allowed, roll up your swag in the heat of the campfire (since it was absolutely FREEZING) and onto the bus to see the sunrise and have breakfast before driving to kata jhuta (the olgas) for our next 7k hike. This mountain range looks so bizarre and is a sacred place to the aboriginees which meant we couldn't take photos in many of the places. Back onto the minibus and to the cultural centre where we spent the hottest part of the day learning all the stories of uluru, what the aboriginees believed and how they lived as they still live off the land. One of them had recorded his story of how he first saw a white man who was the guy who had been paid by the government to travel from adelaide to darwin so that they could lay repeater stations for communication. He travelled on foot and by camel (which eventually were released which is how there are camels there), all the way up only to reach the top (darwin) blind and extremely ill and be told by the government that he was an alcoholic and so they would not pay him any money for his troubles. He then flew back to france to be looked after by his sister before passing away not long later...nice eh! It was all so interesting, loved it.

We then did part of the base walk of the rock so that our guide could show us where they cooked and some of the ceremonial caves and things and tell us what they were all used for before going to watch the sunset and colour change over the rock, eating thai green curry and bumping into my friend from university again!...how bizarre..back to our next camp, which was a bit more advanced with a pool and toilet block and a SHOWER! treats.

Up the next morning to see the rock at sunset, amazing...after a scrabble for a space and dodging a few over eager photographers we watched the sun rise, the sky change colour and the rock suddenly glow red for a few minutes before settling into it's day time colour of dark orange...the photos just dont do it justice it was incredible. We then walked the 9k around the base of the rock before making our way back to alice for a night out at bo jangles, which ended up being a mass reunion of everyone we had bumped into since leaving adelaide (the outback is not too highly populated and there aren't too many places to go!), it was a really good night followed by a really chilled day, saying goodbye to dunks in the morning , relaxing by the pool in the afternoon and saying bye to debbie and anna in the afternoon who we had met on our uluru trip and jumping on our plane to fly to cairns where we would be stopping for the next few months to earn some money...well that's the plan anyway...