I was going to get the train from Adelaide up to Alice Springs but in the end it wasn't running when I wanted to go so I ended up doing a 2 day tour up there instead...I decided to go with 'Groovy Grape Adventure Tours' and I'm so glad I decided to do and it was definitely well worth the extra $65 compared to the train...It was a small group of about 11 of us and we had a comfy mini bus. There was a huge distance involved, something like 1500km to cover in 2 days but actually we got some pretty cool stops in rural Outback Australia, two great lunches and an overnight stop in the Opal Capital of the World, Cooper Pedy, where we stayed in underground accommodation and did a really good underground mine tour and learnt about the industry. To be honest I don't really get the whole Opal thing as I didn't realise how expensive they are, but I cant really tell the difference on the cheap ones to the half a million ones, I'd save my money for diamond still I think...

Most of the houses and shops etc are built in underground dug outs because of the extreme temperatures local face most of the year. We went out for dinner at the local Pizza place so all in all it was well worth the money. The weather wasn't so great though, it started to rain when we first had lunch and had cold gusty winds, not the weather we were all expecting as we hit the Australian outback, but it was because we were still in South Australia. By the time we got into Alice Springs it was a lot warmer.

I also held a Joey- a baby Kangaroo...it was actually the sweetest thing ever. Sooo cute!

Alice Springs is probably Australia's most famous outback towns it is literally in the middle of Australia. Thousands of kilometres to the sea...I don't think I could live there. The weather can be pretty extreme too but we were here at a good time of year as it was entering their winter so it was more like 30c instead of 40c! A lot of smelly Aboriginals hanging around drunk though which is pretty sad, also you're advised never to walk anywhere at night unless a big group as you are likely to get robbed etc...not very nice! But it was fine, so tired anyway we weren't in the mood for partying.

A free night at the hostel was included before getting up at 5am for the main adventure: A 3 day Red Centre Tour!