Yet again we had to be outside the hostel at ridiculous 'o' clock, 5:30 to be precise! From the start we knew we would have fun, there were some real characters on the bus. We headed north for an hour or so, passing over the Tropic of Capricorn until we reached Ti Tree where we had breakfast, Ti Tree is pretty much exactly in the centre of Australia. We stopped off at Wycliffe Wells which is a 'town' where they have the most UFO sightings in Australia apparently!Or maybe they have just drunk too much goon!We stopped off at several 'towns' along the way which were actually just a service station which would double as a bar, campsite, post office, restaurant, etc, etc!

We then carried on to the Devils Marbles for lunch and a play about. It was so hot, just walking you would be sweating loads, we climbed some of the rocks and were absolutely dripping! The marbles are crazy granite structures, some of them to be very precariously balanced it is a wonder how they don't fall over! Quite a few of them are also incredibly spherical, a weathering effect that has taken millions of years. Our guide then took us to the Mary-Ann Dam just outside Tennant Creek for a swim. The water was pretty murky but really refreshing after the journey. There was a diving platform in the middle of the lake, even I managed to swim out there!! From here we headed north to a cattle station called Banka Banka with a herd of about 50,000 beef cattle! We had a BBQ and a camp fire, it was a very clear night and there were a huge number of stars, we decided to sleep outside on mattresses, just before we fell asleep we saw a huge shooting star with a massive tail right in the middle of the sky, it was great.

The next morning we spent a few hours in the bus before arriving at the famed Daly Waters pub and a tour around Daly Waters, this took the whole of 60 seconds as there are only about 5 houses here and a population of 5 - and yes everything does revolve around the pub! We grabbed a beer and had a dip in the pool before having some lunch. The pub was pretty crazy, loads of memorabilia from around the world, including some huge bra's and pairs of knickers!! We then went on to Mataranka hot springs which is situated in the 'never-never' some people never want to leave, some people never want to go back, it's a pretty harsh place either very hot and very wet or very hot and very dry! The hot springs were lovely, very relaxing, although the surrounding area was not quite as pretty as we had hoped for although they have recently had floods which probably explains it. Another few hours on the bus we reached our campsite, close to Katherine Gorge ready for a hike the next morning. There was a great electrical storm that night, check out some of the photos of the forks!

We were treated to a lie in this morning, we only had to get up a 6:15 am!! Our walk took us to a beautiful lookout over Katherine Gorge, before we headed to a remote swimming hole. We couldn't believe it when we got there, a waterfall over a lovely pool, exactly what you would imagine and want when you think of the perfect remote water hole. It was really humid and after all the walking it's exactly what we wanted. There were some great rocks to jump off and into the deep water, maybe 3m high! After about an hour here we walked back to the bus and got all hot again!

We went up to Darwin from here and were dropped off at the hostel. We had made plans to meet up again later with the group as Adventure Tours were paying for dinner!

It turned out it was quiz night, we were coming about 5th up until the last bonus round where it was down to me to try to earn some extra points for the team. It turned out it was a race between one member from each group to find something we were told to, these included a fag, a cigarette lighter, a condom, a passport, a bra (thanks to Sarah!), a pair of knickers, boxer shorts and I had managed with a lot of help from the group to do this. There were 3 of us left and we needed to find a sock, again my group threw me one so we got to the final 2. Me and an Irish girl, the challenge was to down a pint through the sock, I duly obliged and we got enough points to finish third and get a load of free beer!!

It turned out that Paul, a really cool American guy was in the same pub from our last tour, was good to catch up with him again. We finished the night with lots more dancing and drinking and a great night was had by all, a fantastic way to end a tour!!

Anyway, must go.

Much love to all.

A & S xxx