Hi everyone! Can't believe how long it is since I updated. Thank good ness for Theresa keeping it going! After leaving Cape tribulation and Cairns, we headed off for the outback, which was absolutely amazing. I don't think I can describe it well enough to do it any justice. It is like nothing we have ever seen before. It is so vast and there was stretches of road with nothing on it at all, apart from a dead roo every half kilometre or so (luckily we didn't hit any). When we first started driving it was quite exciting, but after 3 days it got a tad boring I can tell you! The good thing about it was the roads were just straight, so really we just had to point and go. At first the scenery was quite green still, but after a few hundred k's it began to get redder and redder, with an odd tree or bits of tumbleweed dotted along the way. The cars we seen were few and far between, but there was these massive road trains all along the way. Road trains are lorries, but with up to four trailers being pulled. I must admit that on our trip I became a bit of a train spotter (sad, I know), but they are amazing. The thing about them is, if they are coming towards you on your side of the road, you have to pull over because they take too long to stop and they go at some speeds. Van was taken over on more then one ocassion! Because we were heading to Alice Springs on a bit of a tight schedule we drove for up to 14 hours a day and only really stopped to sleep or refuel. But because the driving was so easy it didn't seem so bad. The rest stops were up to 150km between each other and the 'towns' we stopped in to refuel were literally a petrol pump/house/shop/toilet all rolled into one building and their nearest neighbour could be 100kms away. We thought they were towns when we first started because they were marked on the maps, but they are just one building. And the petrol prices were up 50% on what they were in the city, but there's not much you can do about it out there! We reached Alice about 3 days after setting off from Cairns. Alice was bigger than we thought it would be and it was roasting! The hostel we stayed in was pretty manky, but we only had a few hours sleep there because we were up to go on our Uluru trip at 5.30am. There was just Fuz, me and the tour guide for a five hour journey, but he had a good ipod set up and air con in the 4X4 so we were happy! It was quite nice to be driven around actually. We picked 3 others up at the camp near Uluru (three women, Fuz was not delighted, but they turned out to be really nice so he got over it!) and we were quite surprised to find that our mobiles had the best signal they have had since leaving the U.K! It is surprisingly very developed around the Uluru and Kata Tjuta area and we were a bit disappointed that it was so touristy. There is quite a big resort built quite near it, so there was internet facilties and all sorts (not actually at Uluru, but at the resort). Our disappointment was not to last long and the trip was excellent. We drove to Uluru and it was beautiful. The aboriginals believe it is a magical place and we really could see why. There are obviously geological reasons for it's being, but I quite liked the aboriginal beliefs about the creation of Uluru, it was particularly fascinating. The aboriginal people ask you not to climb Uluru as it is a sacred sight, but it is allowed and some people were climbing it. We decided not to climb it and walked the 9km around it instead. It was our first taste of serious heat. The pair of us were pecking and panting after about half an hour and luckily there are water tanks dotted all the way around the base so we were able to fill up regularly. After the walk we went to our camp and watch the sun set over Uluru with a glass of champagne (alright, it was sparkling wine) and some nibbles. It was amazing. That night our tour guide (Lindsay) cooked us a lovely meal and lit the camp fire. There was shower facilties at this campsite and he advised us to use them as it would be the last for a couple of days. After showering, everyone got into their swag bags round the camp fire and fell asleep looking up at the stars. It was the most relaxing experience I have ever had. The next morning we were woken up at 5am and went to a spot to watch the sunrise over Uluru - along with about three hundred other people! We headed to Kata Tjuta national park and walked around 8km. We were there early enough to just about beat the heat, but it was still roasting, even at 9 in the morning. This walk was much more difficult than the previous day as it was over rocks, up slopes etc. It was beatiful scenery too, and nothing like we have seen at home. After that, we drove to a camp location at Kings Creek. The place we arrived was a bit of an adventure place, and we decided to go quad biking. There was only us two who decided to do it, and we were taken on it by a boy from Lewis! How bizarre that in the middle of the outback in Australia we would meet a boy fae Lewis! I haven't even met anyone from Lewis when I was at home! He was a bit of a character and had been living out there for 6 months. What puzzled us was that he was a rather chunky chap - how could he manage to still be heavy living in 35 degrees, working hard on an outback farm and doing quad tours every day?? The grub must have been good and plentiful on his farm... Anyway, the tour was fab! He took us right into the outback, dodging branches, fleeing round dirt tracks (fleeing is probably a bit of an exaggeration when refering to me...) and speeding along open spaces of nothingness. I almost had my ankle chopped off when I put my foot onto the ground when going round a bend (it is rule number one that you don't put your foot down - it is not a motorbike as Scotty said!), but luckily I escaped with minor friction burn and scratches! Fuz and Scotty had to wait for me a quite alot, but I wasn't bothered. In my mind I was doing high speeds and having a rare time! After the tour we went to our new camp, which was really in the bush. It only had a bush toilet, that was a 2 minute walk from camp (no door, no light, no sink) and there was not another soul for a good 20kms. We again watched the sun go down with fizzy wine and nibbles, then had a lovely tea and chilled by the fire. Fuz decided he wanted to sleep away from everyone and ventured a little further into the bush. It was a bit of trial finding him in the morning to wake him up, but after a small search party was set up, we eventually stumbled across him, still sleeping like a baby. We packed up camp and headed to King's Canyon. This was an uphill climb of 6.5km and was fairly difficult. The scenery and views were amazing. It was like something out of Star Trek, with random plants apparently sprouting from rocks and trees growing out of the side of the rock face. There was a couple of water holes in the canyon and one was called the garden of eden, and it was not difficult to see why. It was like a small pond in the centre of huge rock faces, with palm trees and wildlife with a most tranquil feeling about it (tranquil until a school group of about 100 teenagers arrived, time for us to move!). The walk was exhausting, but well worth doing and again we just about managed to beat the heat. After the walk we headed for a bbq lunch, then a long drive back to Alice. We stayed in the same hostel (just because we had booked it previously!) and were sharing a room with a blind man and his dog. One of the most amazing things about travelling is the interesting people you meet and spend time with, people you would never come across at home. Anyway, we had a meal and a couple of drinks with the people we had been on the trip with (Alice is pretty wild, even more so than Annan I think), but had a fairly early night due to having an 5am start the next day. Anyway, time to sign out for now. I am jiggered after all that writing. Hope everyone is ok, will hopefully hear from folks soon. Take care, Em and Fuz.XXX