In 1995, on my first trip to Australia, I set out on a coach from Sydney going in the opposite direction - up through the red centre and then flying across from Darwin to Cairns before heading down the east coast. Because I had written far more during that trip than I did for this area of the country during my return trips, the following pages are taken from my original travel journals written all those years ago. As I take up the journey, our organised tour had ...

I will be speaking in more detail in the next section about my previous trip to Uluru (Ayres Rock), and the areas surrounding it. This was my second visit to Kata Tjuta National Park, the home of Uluru, and this time I had a very clear idea up front of exactly what Eloise and I wanted to get out of the experience. We had no intention of following an organised tour as it climbed the rock or of traipsing along after a guide as he explained every little detail of Ul...

We had to be up at a ridiculously early time this morning to prepare for the long day in front of us, so early in fact that I hadn't previously been aware that such a time of the morning existed. On the way out of town on the coach, we passed probably the most optimistic tourist attraction I've ever seen in my life, in terms of initial cost against any possible return - the so-called Min Min encounter. Opened in April 2000, this ultra modern attraction set somebo...

After boarding the bus earlier in the morning than should be legal, our first stop for the day was at the small town of Winton, just over 150 miles from Hughenden. We were now well and truly in the outback, the roads being very rarely much more than dirt tracks anymore, but the scenery was starting to become more interesting and the driver was forever pointing out some strange landmark or another. You really have to have your wits about you driving on Australian ...

Travelling across outback Australia is quite unlike anything else I've ever experienced, and never fails to take me by surprise however often I do it. Once your coach leaves one town, it's often hours before you arrive at the next and on the way the view consists almost entirely of red desert, scattered rocks, roadside grave markers and distant mountains. That isn't to say that journeys across Australia are boring by any means - quite the opposite, in fact. The s...