It's been 5 fives since I returned home (boo) and it's only now I'm finishing this blog. I was here over 3 months ago, I cannot believe it.

Well after the walk in the torrential rain, I can't quite remember the exact run of events but I think we went to see Kata Tjuta from a distance, the scene you see in the postcards. After that we went to Yulara, the actual National Park that Uluru is in. We still haven't seen Uluru at this point.

I can't remember now if we went to the visitor's centre first or if we went to see Uluru. I think we may have gone to see Uuru at this time. We all wanted to see Uluru with waterfalls on it, seeing as it's actually such a rare sight. Some guides haven't even seen waterfalls on the rock. It's all timing really. Of course we were soooo lucky that it rained :-) !! We did feel privileged though, it's nice to see something in a way that most people will never see. We took a drive around the rock first, then stopped off at the classic picture spot to get the photos. The sky was such a dark, gloomy colour, the rock changes colour with the weather. It was quite a grey brown colour now. Of course we were all in awe, this is the whole reason we were on this tour. It is amazing, I don't care what anyone says, there is just something magical & mystical about this rock.

So next we went to the visitors centre and had lunch. Yes, I think this is in the right order. After lunch, wander around the visitors centre/museum. Whilst wandering around there was a bit of conversation going with a few of the group and the guide. It turns out a severe weather warning had been issued and he thought it best we get to our camp and try to batten down the hatches before the storm hit. Apparently golf ball sized hailstone was predicted. I hope everyone is noticing a pattern here...middle of the desert, you don't expect rain, Karen & Caitriona descend and you can't assume anything!!

Seeing as we were supposed to be sleeping outside !!! yes, his idea was that if we got back to the campsite (yes a proper campsite tonight, oh luxury) early enough, we could grab the laundry room before any other group get in there and sleep there. So that was the mission.

So off we went. We got lucky and managed to grab the laundry room. There were 2 swags already in there so it was a tight squeeze trying to get our group in. We weren't all going to fit so some people would have to sleep in our camp area. This bad weather meant we were stuck at camp for the rest of the day, it was only about 2.30, 3pm at this stage. It also meant we were not going to get any sunset. I was going to be very upset if we didn't get sunrise also. One of my main highlights for this tour was to see Uluru at sunrise and sunset and watch it's changing colours. Anyway, I had hope.

Now we had a new mission. Wash! Myself & Karen and a few other ladies decided enough was enough and dusty, sweaty, wet, manky 2 day old clothes were no longer the fashion and had to be taken off. Oh it was heaven. Of course while we were busy cleansing ourselves, the rest of the group went off in the van to get some tarpaulin to cover over our camp area. We had our priorities!

We all helped out with doing the best to cover over the camp area. The camp area consisted of a shaky metal table, a cooking area, sink and fridge. I don't know who was going to sleep there! The wind was picking up by now but still no hailstones. Bit of rain only. Cooking was next, more chopping etc. Eventually dinner was ready, myself and Karen decided to start the festivities and have our 2 beers!! I don't think anyone else from our group were drinking. Booooo. Anyway, after dinner, there wasn't really much else to do. Nobody wanted to stay up, nobody wanted to sit around and be social, and nobody had any alcohol. so it was to bed, at about 8pm!!! OMG. I think the guide has never had this happen before. I suppose we were up early and it was going to be even earlier tomorrow. As it turns out, also, the storm never really hit. It was a bit windy and it rained a bit but golf ball sized hailstones, lies, all lies... So we had missed out on half a day's tour. It was a bit disappointing really but I guess it couldn't be helped.