Hey to all

Well the last few days have definitely been eventful so this could be a long one!!

We have just arrived back in Cairns after spending 4 days in the outback, exploring Ayres Rock which has been fantastic but very dirty!!

Our flight over to Alice Springs was only 2 hours long but was amazinglpy empty, we had loads of leg room and wer served very good lunch and snacks so that was great! We also met Maja at the airport who turned out be on our tour and become part of our gang for the weekend - yes we actually made friends!! (more to come on some of them)

We were then picked up at 5:30am in the morning by Joel our tour guide for the 3 days. It is difficult to describe Joel in a few short words as he has got to be the craziest person we have ever met!! He looked a little like Borat but more rugged and just talked crap at us for most of the weekend but he was hilarious bless him and kept us all going when we hadn't slept for days!

The drive out to Kings Canyon was about 5 hours long and it really is difficult to describe how vast the country is. We could drive for hours without seeing another person or animal. It is all just so desolate but really bautiful as the sky does not have a cloud in it and the ground is all covered in red dust that gives an amazing landscape (incidentally this red dust did not look so great when we were covered in it)

Kings Canyone was out first hike and is a mountain range in the dessert (I can't really remember anything else about is as the geology explanation was fairly complicated!) needless to say it was very hot and very steep but the views were worth it!!

We went out into the bush and collected firewood by tearing down dead trees that were lying around. What this actually meant was all the girls wandered round picking up small twigs while the guys tried to be manly and pull up entire tree trunks only to discover that the only who could actually manage that was Joel!

We then camped out in the middle of a cattle ranch which is one of the biggest in Australia (you could fit Holland into it 16 times which gives you an idea of how vast we are talking here). When I signed up for camping I had assumed this included a tent but turned out it was litterally this waterprood swag, a sleeping bag and the ground!

Me and Emma then showed our 1950's house wive skills and made dinner for everyone which we got many photos of as we were very prud of cooking the big pot of chilli on the little gas hob. We aslo had this crazy bread that cooked in a pot on the fire but tasted delicious!!

The night was very cold and very uncomfortable but the stars pretty much made up for that as you could actually see the constellations it was so clear out there!!

The next day we headed to The Ulgas which are fairly close to Ayres Rock but are lots of rocks put together :) In the afternoon we headed to Ayres Rock to watch the sunset where the rock is famous for looking like it changes colour and glows. There is aviewing point directly in front of it where hundreds of us all turned up in coaches with bottles of wine and sat and watched it and the view was amazing. I have some pictures that give you an idea of it but it honestly glowed bright red as the sky turned purple!!

On the final day we headed to Ayres Rock again to do the full base walk and learn a lot more about the indigenous people and the symbolism surrounding Uluru which is it's actual name! The Australian Government are finally trying to work with the aboriginees to bring the area back to how it was originally kept but with a lot of conditions attached. We have both noticed there are obviously still some real divides within the two communities and most aboriginees who have moved into western cultures are getting ill and struggling to fit in with the lifestyle!

On the way back we had the chance to ride some racing camels on another cattle farm and the pictures of us on top of a camel while it runs, after 3 days of about 4 hours sleep a night are pretty funny!! lol

We then all got back to Alice Springs and went out for dinner and drinks with the group. We had some amazing people omn our tour from ireland, Canda, Germany, Italy and Korea who proabbly not surprisingly all spoke great English! Daniel from korea was proabbly the most enthusiastic photographer any of us had ever met and took about 200 every day which he is sending to us all bless him and lovely Linda from Ireland who made us look really brown which was great! We had a group of canadians all travelling together who were pretty annoying to be honest! They clearly thought they were too cool for school but were actually just drunk and tone deaf most of the time :) We then had Alex who had come to improve his english making him perfect target to listen to us rambling on! Only one brit on the tour, good old Liam from sheffield who had come from India and was heading to New Zealand then South America. They have all inspired me to get round the whole world now so you guys might not be seeing me for a while!!!

We are heading off tomorrow on a cable car through the rain forest then picking up the campervan on Monday to start heading down the coast!

Love to you all, we are having a great time but still have my home sick moments and missing you all even if your lives are pretty dull :) xx