Hey Guys! I have so much to tell you, it's taken me ten pages of writing in my journal so I hope you lot are all sitting comfortably!

Ok, so let's start at the beginning (it's a very good place to start). Sunday morning at 5am I got up with my room mate Casey (from Sydney) and we got onto the Rock Tours Bus for 3 days of sight seeing. We were going to see Kings Canyon, Kata Tjuta (aka the Olgas) and Uluru (aka Ayers Rock). Kata Tjuta and Uluru are the Aboriginee names that have now been reclaimed since Aborinigals have gained better status. I was realyl excited, after all, this was one of the reasons I came to Australia.

I was expecting an experienced bush guide who'd grown up in Oz and knew the place like the back of his hand. Our guide was called Drew, he was young (i later found out he was 22 years old), had been doing the job for 3 months,..... and was from Buckinghamshire, in England. That said, i could not have imagined a better guide. He was knowledgeable, informative and very good at all aspects of the tour, I was very impressed.

So, 21 tourists all on the bus from all over the world, apart from Drew I was the only English, there were Canadians (3 of them forgot to bring shoes, expecting to do all the climbing and hiking in flip flops), Aussies, Chinese, Taiwaneese, Finish, Germans and French.

Our first stop was a camel farm, check out the pictures! It was really fun, and camels live in the wild here in the Northern Territory, since they were brought over to help build the Ghan Railway, once that was finished they were let into the wild, we saw a few on the first day. After that it was a vey long journey to Kings Canyon, which we reached about mid-day. The heat was intense, and we had to carry about 3 litres of water around with us because it was so hot. That and a hat was important- one swedish lady fashioned her bag into a makeshft hat. Our first climb was up a hill called Heart Attack Hill, for obvious reasons! That was really tough, but i'd hoped once we were up it that it would be the last hill we'd have to climb, how wrong I was! (jan and nick, you'd love this walk!) That said, it was an amazing place and the views were stunning, I took loads of pictures but i don't think any of them do it justice. It was simply beautiful. Drew would stop us every now and then to tell us about the trees, or how the canyon was formed and how the aboriginals used them to their advantage. I was very interested to learn of a type of tree they used and burnt the leaves from this tree, when the children were naughty they would dangle the child over the leaves burning because the smell and the smoke was terrible. Hmmm, could use that in England! (Children of cape beware, i'll be sending some to your teachers!)

We carried on around the canyon, taking in the sights and listening to drew, the garden of eden was beautiful, as was the water hole, except for the fact that it hadn't had any new water for about 3 months (when it last rained) and hadn't been washed out properly in over 2 years. Shame, because we could have gone swimming in it, but i didn't fancy swimming in algae! After trekking 7km, over 3 hours we ended up back at the bus and went to our next stop. We collected wood for the fire later on, got some alcohol from the local shop (a proper aussi bar with 4 locals) and headed off to our camp site a few hours away. Around sunset, Drew suddenly slowed down and I realised that there were kangaroo in the road, about 3 of them and I watched them jump off into the bush, i was so excited! Unfortunately they were too quick to get a photo of.

It was dark by the time we got to our camp. It was pitch black and we were the only vehicle on the road when suddenly drew pulled off, down the beaten track and stopped in a place they regularly use. There was NOTHING around us- no lights, no cars, no houses, NOTHING, i'll admit i was a little nervous, and that was made slightly worse when one of the girls pointed out a spider near the camp fire- now this was the first spider i've seen since arriving in australia, i knew it would happen at some point, but apparently this was a Huntsman spider (go google those bad boys and you'll see what I mean- big, white and long legs!). I tried not to think about any spiders or anything else around me at that point. So to calm my nerves i got my ipod out and sat on my rolled up swag (will come back to those later) as a makeshift seat and chilled out a bit. After a few minutes i looked down when I felt something on my hand.... and saw a Huntsman had climbed up my leg and onto my hand. Yep, exactly. Needless to say, i got up very quickly and shook him off! But surprisingly enough, i didn't freak out, i didn't want to cause hysteria with some of the girls on the trip, and i didn't want to allow myself to panic- i had to sleep in this place! In some weird way, i was actually pleased because i realised i'd survived my first spider incident, and it hadn't bit me! It just jumped off my hand and crawled towards the fire! Check me out.

Right now onto swags. A swag is between a sleeping bag and a mini tent. It is thick canvas, with a foam smattress underneath, you put your sleeping bag inside it, zip it up then there's a large flap that covers your head and face. I rested my head to the side so i could see through a crack in the swag and tried to sleep. It was ok, the flap blew off a few times so i didn't sleep too well, i didn't want to put my hand on something trying to sort it out! But I also wasn't confident enough to sleep with nothing covering my face either. Drew got us up at 5am to get to our next destination, after collecting wood at 6am- i wasn't much help then unfortunately. We were heading to Kata Tjuta and then Uluru for sunset.

Kata Tjuta look like boulders placed there by a giant for a game or something. They just loom out at you from a distance, looking beautiful. This walk was 7.4km, but there was no heart attack hill so it was good, we also started about 10am before it was too hot to handle so it felt a lot better. We got to the look out point over them, it was just magnificent. Once again, I have loads of pictures but they don't show how steep, or how amazing this place was. Our walk took us from Kata Tjuta and around them so we could see them from all the different parts. It really was a lovely walk. Casey and I walked it together, chatting to more of our group as we went. You don't need to spend much time with Casey to realise she's really lovely, in fact most of our group were pretty cool (apart from 2) and we all got on really well.

That evening, we got to Uluru, this was the part I was excited about. It was sunset, drew was cooking dinner for us at the bus, and there were loads of people all doing the same thing. It was stunning, and everyone was in good spirits. Drinking wine, watching the changing colours of Uluru with people around you, it's something i know i'll remember for the rest of my life. If you look at my pictures you can actually see the different shades of colour as it changed. It was made even better when just after sunset, when the stars were coming out, a tour guide from another company came over and gave us 3 bottles of champagne! Which we all drank out of mugs (classy huh?!) everyone was in a great mood.

We got back to the next camp site at Yulara, next to Uluru where the tourists stay- you aren't allowed to stay at Uluru and set up camp, we'd stopped at a shop where casey and i got chocolate and marshmallows to toast over the fire. Drew made a damper (like a cakey/bread thing) and we had much-longed for showers. Feeling clean was such a good feeling, and there were lots of other tours in the same place, i liked it, and i wasn't nervous about creepy crawly things around me either. It was a perfect night, we ate, drank, then got into our swags. The ngiht's sky was beautiful- i've never seen so many stars- honestly there were MILLIONS! I didn't think there were so many! I don't think i have the words to describe how beautiful it was, Drew played his guitar and sang softly in the background, i kept my flap open this time, it was warm, i was content, and i drifted off into a deep sleep and slept so well.

Waking up at ten to five the following morning wasn't too bad- when you wake up and the first thing you see is this amazing sky full of stars, it automatically puts you in a great mood. We went to watch the sunrise over Uluru, before doing the base walk, for me personally, the sunrise wasn't as impressive as sunset, but i think maybe later in the year it would be better. It was so early, we started the 8km base walk around Uluru at 7:15 and were done by 9:15- it felt like at least 11! If you ever get to come to Uluru, please please please do not climb it, it's so disrespectful because it's sacred and walking around it you get this sense of a deep spirituality that I didn't understand the full extent of, but i knew it was sacred, and its kind of upsetting to think that people ignore this and insist on climbing it just for their own gain (there is also evidence to suggest bad things happen to people who do).

So there we go, that's pretty much the highlights, i don't think i could have done it justice with my words or pictures- i'm not that clever, but it was one of the most memorable experiences, i wont be forgetting in a hurry.

Thank you for all your comments on my message blog, I'm so pleased you are enjoying it!

Will speak to you all soon

Loadsa love xxxx