G'day from the Ozzie Outback!!

Where we have spent the past three days seeing the renamed Uluru, Olgas and Kings Canyon. We flew from Perth into Alice Springs and landed in the middle of an amazing thunderstorm, the sky was literally lit up with constant fork lightning it was unreal, the sky was purple! Our tiny plane was like a kite in the sky and you could feel every bit of wind that hit us! We can safely say we have hit a major storm now.

After our little thunderstorm experience we headed to our accomodation - the Novotel Alice Springs. The room was fairly basic, but had all we needed including a tv to keep up with the Ashes - which was appaling to watch. After we had refuelled at the hotel restaurant we headed for the casino and more roulette. Again, we came away empty handed as our luck ran dry - we actually did quite well to start with.

The following morning we were picked up at 7am to begin our Uluru adventure - Shell had to sort out whether we were actually doing a 3 day or 4 day tour and after that was worked out we headed for our first stop - the Olgas. The Olgas were formed at the same time as Uluru (Ayers Rock) by techtonic plates pushing together incidentally forming rock formations which rise extremely high above the earths surface.

We trekked for a massive 7.5km loop around the Olgas which lasted for about 3 hours. Although quite tired and aching we were then off again to see Uluru at sunset. It was quite an intresting sight as the rock changes colour throughout the sunset from orange, red, brown and finally black. We watched the sun set on the rock whilst drinking champagne and eating cheese biscuits with dips mmm mmm.

Our first nights accomodation was at the luxurious 5 star accomodation that was a tiny campsite - we had our own little tent though which was a palace. We had a barbecue for dinner with steaks and sausages galore, potato bake and plenty of wholesome salad! After a few tinnys we then settled into our little tent as we were told we had to be up at 4am to see the sunrise at Uluru!

The following morning was spent watching the sunrise which was pretty much watching a sunset in reverse! We watched this whilst eating breakfast - which consisted of coco pops with warm milk and jam sandwiches - yuk!! Oh well I suppose it was better than sod all, after our crackin brekky we trekked round Uluru at 7am for 9.5km, our legs were trembling at the finish! Couldnt climb Uluru as the "abbos" say its disrespectful and dangerous to climb and it was shut due to winds anyway!

Onward and upward we headed to our lunch stop where we had last nights leftovers with fresh salad and more meat - I had to say Jason - our tour guide was pretty shoddy with food! We headed for the culture centre which was pretty boring to be honest apart from the film on weird aboriginal tribes with their breasts out doing some crazed dance. Afterwards we headed to our next accomodation and had a bit of time for a swim and a beer before we had our campfire dinner. Tonights evening meal consisted of chicken stew which was actually quite nice - followed by Jasons dessert - basically bread with apricots and sugar! It wasnt bad to be fair to him!

We then decided it would be a good idea to find some snakes half cut on our nocturnal walk, lets put it this way - even some of the tour guides refused to go on it! We did come away from the walk disappointed and pretty drunk and had been roped into having a night of schwagging! Schwagging is basically a giant weatherproof bag, containing a mattress and sleeping bag and you just lie in it underneath the stars!

The following day was spent at Kings Canyon - another 4am wake up call and this time hungover, made worse by the fact that Dan fell asleep with a can in his hand and covered his vest in it! We spent half a day here exploring the site and although it was less in distance to tour it - we actually spent about 4 hours trekking around it! Was worth it though - got to see the sunrise and there were plenty of things to see here. This was our final day of the tour and we had to leave our group to continue on their final day as they were all doing 4 days. We were picked up and dropped back at the hotel, time for another meal in Alice springs followed by a few beers before we head out to Cairns.

Hope you guys are all good - nice to hear from you all, speak to you all soon x x x Dan and Shell x x x