It's 5:20am...b*****, my tour leaves at 5:10am. I appear to have fallen for the classic am/pm trick with my alarm clock and have only been awoken by a guy in my dorm going to the toilet. Managing to get myself ready in the dark in less than a minute I bound down the stairs of the hostel wearing pyjamas and hiking boots. Luckily I haven't missed it and have time to get changed before I'm picked up by Virginia, a guide from Adventure Tours a few minutes later.

All set for near 1000km of driving over the next couple of days we make our way down the Stuart Highway where Wedgetailed Eagles are scavenging on roadkill, no doubt caused by the massive road trains which thunder alongside us. The eagles can easily become roadkill themselves, as a few sudden braking stunts from our minibus proves. Their 2.5m wingspan makes them slow to take off. A surprising number of camels (there are 800,000 in Australia) and a rare sight of a kangaroo break up mile after mile of red scrubland.

At King's Canyon the weather has improved to 23C (up from 3C last night in Alice Springs) for the 6km walk around the canyon rim. The deep blue sky provides a beautiful contrast with the rust red rock. A steep climb up the canyon rim gives views over the many domes and a sheer cliff face (caused by a recent rock fall) .

More driving later we pass through a cattle ranch the size of Luxembourg before stopping off at a camel farm. One camel burger later and we're on the road again. We stop to collect firewood before making camp for the night. The instruction is to find wood the size of your arm, but even by my skinny standards it's difficult to find anything but spindly twigs. Finally I come across a more substantial tree when I walk through a cobweb. Now my understanding of Australian spiders is that they are a wee bit more threatening than those at home, so after a minute of slapping myself round the face I realise that the spider wasn't at home.

We make camp for the evening 10km away from Uluru and the sun has really set. I get the fire going with yesterday's embers, and it is really quite hypnotic in a primal sort of way. After a proper Aussie barby, I snuggle into a swag which is essentially a sleeping bag bag, for a night under the stars.

The stars make up the most mesmerising night sky I have ever seen; a clear view of the Milky Way and thousands of other stars. It is said that the Europeans navigate with the stars, but the Aboriginies navigate with the black bits, which certainly seems like the sensible option out here.