We didn't want to take our whole big backpacks with us to Ayers Rock so had to pack 5 days worth of stuff into our tiny 20 litre bags and leave our big bags at Tasha's house...impressively we both managed to do it and when we checked in for our flight both our bags together only weighed 6kg!! I am seriously getting so good at the whole packing light thing!!
When we arrived at our accommodation for the night in Alice Springs it was like 5* luxury compared to the night before in Melbourne! We dumped our stuff then explored Alice Springs in the 40 degree heat! It was like walking around in an oven, but we were not complaining as we hadn't had much hot weather up until then. Alice Springs is a tiny little town and lots of the Australian aborigines live there. They really stood out because they seemed to all have a very similar and distinctive look. We wandered around and bought some essentials ready for our tour (hats, sun cream, water and a sleeping bag!) then headed back to the hostel for a $5 BBQ (you get what you pay for!) We met a nice couple who were also going to be doing the trip at the hostel then had an early night ready for a 5:30am start!
We headed straight to Uluru (the aboriginal name for Ayers Rock) it was a very long drive so we had a few stops along the way, we saw some kangaroos, a dingo and camels. It was so boiling hot by the time we got to Uluru we were all lagging, but we had a couple of walks to do around the rock and also had a look around the cultural centre which explains the history and myths about different sacred areas on the rock. Our guide warned us before one of the walks that we would probably see snakes and to stay very far away from them as they would most likely be venomous! That freaked me out so much but thankfully we did not see any!
That evening we went back to our camp and Janner (our tour guide) cooked kangaroo bolognaise with pasta and garlic bread for dinner which was yummy! After dinner we had to set up our beds...we were sleeping completely out in the open in a swag bag which is like a mattress and pillow in a waterproof case which you put your sleeping bag into. It was so cool because everyone put their beds in a circle around the camp fire and the sky was full of stars! It was boiling hot though so I was just lying on top of my sleeping bag with nothing over me, that was until I was rudely awoken at 3am by a heavy downpour of rain! Janner said it never rains there so me and oddy now officially know we are jinxed with bad weather and can even bring rain to a desert!! Everyone grabbed their swag bags and dragged them into the shelter we had for a kitchen/eating area but when me and oddy got there oddy got the very last spot under cover so I had to drag mine back out into the rain!!! We had already been told we had to get up at 4am the next morning so I only had to endure 1 hour in the rain thankfully but that was enough! It was really windy as well and there was lots of lightening so by 4am I was over the moon to be told we could get up and get back on the dry bus! I jumped up and ran for cover forgetting that i had left my sleeping bag out, while I was getting dressed the heavens opened and my sleeping bag got soaked :-( so by this point I was pretty fed up with the outdoor camping experience!! The rain didn't let up until the afternoon, so we had a very wet and windy walk in the morning and we missed the sunrise over Uluru which was a shame. The wet and windy walk turned out to be pretty funny because we didn't have rain coats so Janner gave us two bin bags to put over our hoodies and the wind was insane! He was really excited about the weather because he had never seen mount Kata Tjuta with waterfalls going down it, so apparently we were LUCKY to see it in that weather! Janner was a really good guide because he did his best to keep everyone's spirits up and a lot of the other guides had cancelled the walk and taken their groups back to the cultural centre we had been too the day before instead. After the walk we had lunch then headed to the next campsite, the sun finally had its hat back on by then which was useful because we all had soaking wet clothes from the walk. This campsite was amazing compared to the one before, it had proper tents with beds in and a swimming pool! We got into our bikinis and jumped straight in the pool as it was back to desert weather by then, Janner cooked us another delicious dinner of chicken, stir fry veg and rice and we even had an Aussie chocolatey bread thing for dessert.
Our morning wake up call the next day was 3:30am!! We had quite a hard walk to do up Kings Canyon so we had to get there before sunrise as it would be too hard to do in the heat. This walk was my favourite one of the 3 days, it was really steep at the beginning, it's nick named heart attack hill but because we did it before it got hot it was fine. The views of the canyon at the top were really cool. It was about a 4 hour walk so the second half of it was tough because it got to 37 degrees by 9am! In the afternoon we had to start heading back to Alice Springs because it was a 6 hour drive to get back!
We both had a really good time on the trip and are so glad we got to have a real authentic, outback australia experience!