G'DAY EVERYONE!!! I figured that following Rick and Sul's departure I'd resume my blog again, having 2 new readers in addition to my Dad! On our last day together we had a most enjoyable evening walking from the Darling Hrbour to the Opera House all 5 of us holding hands! We kept reaching dead ends and found ourselves staring at fences on numerous occasions, we got a few strange looks along our way! I think we must have walked about 7 miles that night, haha. Rick left a few days later after a slightly less civilised farewell evening of getting battered (and kicked out of) World Bar followed by an emotional 4-way spoon the next morning!

I've just come back from a 3 day camping trip at Ayres Rock (Uluru). After having no sleep on a nightbus from Melbourne to Sydney, having to wait 6 hours for a DELAYED flight to Alice Springs, then having to wait an hour for our transfer to Toddy's hostel, me and Moore began our trip with a veg and bean fest. We finally got in bed and in walks a guy called Dean, he was so lovely but wouldn't stop talking to our sleep-deprived selves for bloody ages! He'd just done our tour and was off to Darwin the next day. Perhaps to seek medication for adhd?!

On the first day we met our group, there were about 20 of us altogether. Favorites were an italian girl called Anna, 2 swedish boys (Gustav and Martin), Aaron (a guy from california travelling for 3 YEARS!) and 2 girls from Holland. Drew, our tour guide made us all get up and introduce ourselves on the microphone at the front of the bus, god I hate these moments! We drove to King's Canyon where we had a 4 hour hike and saw a watering hole and the garden of eden. We had our first experience of using a bush toilet (pro's at this by now after NZ, haha) and were told to watch out for snakes! We camped at Curtin Springs, although when I say camped I'm not actually referring to tents, but these pieces of canvas called swags that we put our sleeping bags in...NOT the best protection from snakes and spiders! These however proved to be the least of my worries...during the night Anna (sleeping next to me) woke Aaron up because a fox was wondering about our camp! She said it had gone right up to my head but Aaron threw water at it and scared it away...I was oblivious to it all (top marks to the ear plugs)!

We woke up at sunrise to a nice bowl of porridge cooked for us by our tour guide, Drew. We then went to see Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), a short distance away from Uluru (Ayres rock), which we could now see in the distance (she was looking fittt!). It was sooo hot and we had another 3 hour walk up to the viewing point which looked just like a painting at the top! Afterwards we created a campers version of subway in the middle of the outback then went to see the Aboriginal Cultural Centre and learnt about all the ceremonies, rituals and stories. It was emphasised how the Aboriginals don't like people climbing Uluru as it's a sacred site, so it was pretty annoying to see people climbing it anyway when we arrived at the rock. I decided against it even though it would have made a cracking addition to my list of things I've climbed! We did the Mula walk instead (Mala's are people who used to live at Uluru) where we saw the men's sacred sites (women aren't supposed to look at these), women's sacred sites, and places where they have ceremonies, oh and the stones they use to make their aboriginal drawings (me and moore tried to test these out as warrior paint of course)!

In the evening we went further away from the rock so we could get a good view for the sunset. We'd done an alcohol shop eariler on in the day so we set ourselves up on a swag and cracked open some beers while we watched Uluru change colour as the sun went down, I wasn't expecting such a distinctive colour change so this was pretty impressive! That night we played some games, one where 2 people had to go in the middle and were blind-folded then spun around and had to find a cardboard axe then hit the other person with it, and one where you had to pick up a cardboard box with your teeth without touching the floor, and it got harder each time (I lasted about 3 rounds). I'm sure these are typical aboriginal games, haha! As it got later and later the stars got really bright, and the milky way was out in its full glory! The foxes didn't take a shine to me that night, maybe the lack of showering came into play?!

On day 3 we had to get up at 4:15 so we could get to a good place to see the sunrise at Uluru. We had brekkie and brew while the sun came up and again watched the rock change colour. We then did the Uluru base walk around it which took about 2 hours, I couldn't believe we'd done all this before 10am! Drew made us some cake for brunch then we went to some red sand dunes where there was a salt lake (slightly smaller than the one's in Bolivia, but still very impressive)! We then got a short camel ride and headed back 5 hours to Alice Springs.

Back to civilisation we crashed and burned for approximately 50 minutes then met up with our group again at the restaurant at our hostel. Me and Moore went for the 'Roo Steak' with chips and salad - Grant would kill us if she finds out! It tasted a bit like beef, but richer. Afterwards went to a bar called Bojangles, a really cool bar that played crap music! The ladies toilet door handle was fixed on the wrong side so everyone laughed as me and moore struggled to get in the toilets - b******s!! We didn't fall for the barbed wire toilet seats thankully.

We have an extra day in Alice before we fly back to Melbourne to fly to Cairns (for some gay reason this works out loads cheper than flying directly to Cairns), so today Ive been wondering round some art galleries etc, I've got an aboriginal notepad to use as my next diary! The only unfortunate thing round here is the bloody flies, there seem to be loads everywhere on Oz but over the last few days they've been well and truly out in force! Still, I can't complain, it is THIRTY FOUR DEGREES...!!!