Today - we cross the border from the Northern Territory into South Australia, and continue heading south to a small opal mining town called Coober Pedy. The odd ball thing is that most of the population lives below ground. It's much cooler than the 45 deg heat that the normally have to deal with on the surface. Of course when we turn up, its only in the high 20s, and spitting with rain. Nonetheless, we have a tour through a mine, and through a typical under...

Long and busy day today. We start off by high tailing it to Uluru to catch sun set. It's pretty. Very pretty. And really busy - but hey ho. We then head across to Kata Tjuta, and do a long walk through the massive sandstones. Again, spectacular views all through the 14km hike. Then, back to Ayers Rock, or rather Uluru, where we walk all around it. There are some pretty amazing rock formations on some faces, but as these are held to be scared sites by the ...

First stop on the tour, is Kings Canyon. Beautiful canyon, with massive steep sides, and amazing walk through the middle of it. Unfortunately, it's far too hot to climb to the top. It's 42 degrees in the shade, which puts estimates of the temperature at the top close to 50 degrees. Not as much fun as it sounds. Afterwards, we push south on a long hall drive, and just catch the Uluru by sun set. We camp that evening near the Uluru national park, ready to ris...

So - here we are in Alice Springs The story so far: we booked a tour through STA Travel in Johannesburg, to take us from Alice Springs down to Adelaide. The short story is STA cocked up (not the first time I understand) and booked us onto a full tour. Not good. So we have re-booked by ourselves to go with a different company, but a day later then intended. Not the end of the world - I just hope STA sort out the refund. Anyway, today was lazy day, as it's ...

Yet another half-arsed update: We've arrvied in Sydney, and spent the last day or so getting over jet lag, and catching up on much needed sleep. We're heading off again in a day or so, to Alice Springs, from where we'll head south to Adelaide, and then eastwards through Melbourne, back to Sydney in time for Christmas. In the mean time, I have retrospectively add some entries, and photos, for some of the time we were in Africa. More will follow...one day!