Strictly speaking Dan and I are now in Melbourne, Victoria but seeing as we've spent our first day here monging out and doing precisely nothing but reading 'arry Potter and eating german leberkuchen (which are yummy by the way!) we will save our Melbourne update for later in the week - so stay tuned. However in the few days since leaving Cairns we've graced Alice Springs with our presence - Dan says it's the 'Red Centre' and wants to live there, I say it's the middle of bloody nowhere and never could, but whichever it is truly 'outback'.

Having said that though we've had a fantastic few days in 'the Alice' courtesy of our hostel 'Annie's Place' and the cracking tour we booked. Despite being sleep AND shower deprived for the three day camping tour (don't worry I coped, not surprisingly Daniel coped even better!) we had a jolly good time on our outback adventure.

Our enjoyment was largely due to the fantastic guide we had in the form of 'Beej' (?) a real meat pie loving aussie 'bloke', who certainly knows his bush stuff - Ray Mears better watch out. Our group also consisted of some great people too, and looking round the campfire was like looking backstage at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Firstly we had a very sweet group of Japanese girls (ok so I know they're not in Europe) who slotted perfectly into the sterotype, armed with their cameras at every opportunity - no joke they took 163 photos of Uluru (Ayers Rock) at sunset - they must need hard drives the size of houses! Unfortunately they didn't always fully understand Beej, our guide, which ended in near disaster when one of them wandered off on what should have been a fully guided 3 hour hike due to the dangerous terrain and environment. We spent the whole of our hike speculating on how she might have met an untimely end due to some venomous king brown or fallen rock but luckily she was waiting rather sheepishly back at the bus when we returned later that afternoon.

Then we had a very sweet middle aged Canadian couple on the tour - Afra and Bud (ok so the Eurovision reference wasn't entirely right), who took the role of mother to the group. She also rather annoyingly took the role of loudmouth of the group, proceeding to tell every one of us several stories on loop about British Columbia (the capital is Victoria and on Vancouver island don't you know) and her daughter's recent purchase of a house with her nerdy loner friend. Annoying (and sweaty) as they were though they did inject a great sense of fun into our three days with them.

But it was our fellow Europeans who've provided the most laughs - a great bunch of Czech and Slovak guys (hi guys if you're reading this) who we got on brilliantly with, as well as Vincent (from Spain) Axel (from Germany) and George (from Peterborough). We've thoroughly enjoyed swapping stories and tales round the campfire as well as more serious matters like debating whether the New Year Spanish custom of eating 12 grapes (or 12 wraps as George thought due to his misunderstanding of Vincents 'Spanlish') in 12 seconds was possible - we're going to try it at some stage to see but apparantly it's nigh on impossible for everyone except Vincent's 86 year old grandfather.

We also had the great fortune to have perfect weather for both our breathtaking sunrise and sunset views of Uluru. And while we respected aboriginal customs by refraining from climbing it - we did get in a whole load of exercise on a couple of other exhausting hikes around the spectacular Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta.

Anyway like a scene from Waltzing Matilda, we've slept out under the stars in swags (canvas sleepbag/tent type things), laughed round the campfire and waited for our billys to boil by the billabong. Well ok perhaps not that last one but we did cook our pasta on the fire for our camel bolognaise (the bush is full of them apparently).

Now that we're back in the 'city' (none of the cities here really feel like cities) Dan's feeling a little claustrophobic and is yearning to get back to being a boyscout collecting wood and weeing in bushes, yet I am itching to get out and do a bit of shopping. But in the five days we have left in Oz ( oh no!!!!) we'll probably summon the energy to do a last bit of sightseeing and get ourselves booked on the absolute must of Melbourne, the Neighbours tour...Ramsay St here we come - wahey!