Our morning started early (4.30am) and with much excitement and anticipation. We joined Ned, our guide, and 13 others on a small orange truck for the Dessert Awakenings Tour. I'd been looking forward to this trip which was a gift from my family.

We headed out on the bitumen road for a number of miles before we hit the gravel road. Travelling under the stars, we sat at the front and could see glimpses of the bush highlighted by the truck headlights. A faint light on the edge of the horizon began to increase as daybreak approached and the stars began to fade, but not before I saw two shooting stars. We walked up a path through the semi-arid desert, with Ned telling us about it, whilst also on snake watch! We reached a platform with comfy chairs and settled in to watch the sunrise. We had a cup of tea (the best I'd had in weeks, so good that I told the chef as much) and warm damper bread drizzled with golden syrup, delicious! This was followed by an egg and bacon roll, nom nom.

The sun eventually popped over the horizon to mark the start of a glorious day. Uluru was visible throughout from our peaceful elevated platform. The desert started to come alive, complete with bush flies! On our walk back Ned talked to us about the flora of the desert, including bush tucker plants, spiniflex (the reason there are no roos here) and pointed out various birds such as the willy wagtail. His patter was engaging, interesting and humorous. The information continued to flow as we drove through the desert into the national park to Uluru.

The immense red monolith that we see is like an iceberg and only a fraction of its total size, which lays under the red earth. One end of the rock is 50 million years older than the other! See, I was listening!

We drove around and made various stops to listen, look, walk and take photos. Uluru is where all the women's business happens. There were a number of sacred sites that we were not allowed to take photos of, such as the fertility and birthing caves. I was surprised at how gnarly the rock face was. I guess because you normally see the classic photo from a distance you never appreciate the erosion characteristics of the worn rocks. All of the back lines are where water flows when it rains.

I particularly liked the waterhole, where there were big tadpoles into water and lots of greenery around. It really is a sight to behold and something you will never be able to capture and share. You have to be here. We listened to the rock as Ned tapped it and heard different sounds of what sounded like hollow rock. We saw rock art, which made me think of the similarities with the Maori art.

Ned also showed us 'the kitchen', a piece of iron stone with two very smooth well worn grooves, where it has been used for crushing and grinding food for thousands of years. These used to be strategically placed all over the desert for the nomadic aboriginal women to use. We learnt about hunting with boomerangs and spears, gathering food, fire stick farming... The list goes on. Ned was a great guide who made an amazing experience even richer by sharing his heritage and knowledge with us. We had a short stop at the cultural centre on the way back where we saw two ladies dot painting and where I treated myself to a small handmade wooden bowl to keep trinkets in.

Having been dropped back at our accommodation I taught Tracy how to bomb Timtams. Good fun and another convert! It even works well with Turkish delight flavoured ones!

We headed to the town square for a mooch around the shops (where I purchased some Lemon Myrtle, watch out Gaz I'll be trying the recipes on you first!) and I returned to the apartment to potter and sleep, whilst the girls hit the pool.

Around 5 o'clock, we all got ready for the evening Sounds of Silence Tour, which includes outdoor bush tucker dining, sunset over Uluru and star talking. We arrived at the pick up point with two waiting coaches. It was raining and further heavy showers had been forecast. We were told that the tour had been cancelled due to the weather. We were all very disappointed but managed to rebook for tomorrow night -Yey! As we walked out there was a rainbow and we felt hopeful about tomorrow. Dressed up with no where to go, we headed over to the restaurant at Sails. We had a lovely meal, I had grilled kangaroo skewers with a mango sauce, whilst the girls had roo curry. The service however was appauling There seemed to be a lot of staff rushing around but in a manner disproportionate to the number of guests. The food was good!