The morning after arriving in Alice Springs, we were picked up at 5.45am for our three day trip out to Kings Canyon, Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Uluru (Ayres Rock). It took until lunch time to get to Kings Canyon and the temperature was 42 degrees centigrade in the shade when we arrived and was about the same for the following two days! Consequently the last thing I felt like doing in the midday heat was climbing 'Heart Attack Hill' to do the Canyon Rim walk. Martin did but I just took the less strenuous walk along the floor of the canyon. The walls of the canyon were deep red sandstone, over 100m tall and with a surprising amount of vegetation along the floor considering the heat and lack of water. Our guide told us this it a 'cool' summer with temperatures last summer 10 degrees hotter on average! Even in temperature of 42 degrees though you lose approximately 1 litre of fluid in sweat per hour so we had to drink continually.

We bush camped at Curtain Springs that night. One of the most irritating things about this area of the country is the flies! They land on you in huge numbers and however much you swat at them they land back on you seconds later. They crawl under your sunglasses, climb up your nose and buzz in your ears, as we collected fire wood that night for a campfire Martin even inhaled a couple!! The next day we bought fly nets to put over our heads, an essential fashion accessory in these parts! The camp fire was not for warmth, just for cooking, in fact the temperature didn't drop below 28 degrees over night. We slept under the stars on swags, a mattress with canvas cover to zip over you in colder weather. Of course we didn't need to zip them up, it probably didn't even get cool enough to sleep until about midnight, then we woke up about 2am with ants crawling all over us as we had put our swags on a ant line!!

We had a 4.20am wake up call and had breakfast under the stars before heading to Kata Tjuta. We did part of the walk through the valley of the winds, we were lucky we got there early as it was closed by 11am 'Due to extreme temperatures'. Then it was on to Uluru for the afternoon where we did the Mala walk, the first 2km of the walk around the base with our guide, looking at some of the caves and Aborigional rock art at the base. We headed to the sunset viewing area and had tea while watching the rock turn red in the setting sun. One of the other tour drivers had rescued a 6 week old Joey from his mothers pouch after she had been hit and killed by a car. Our guide knew someone who had an animal sanctuary so he took him and we took it in turns to look after 'Binky' until we got back to Alice Springs! We were staying on a campsite in Yalara that night so we all got to have a long awaited shower, we actually wanted a cold shower but the water pipes are quite close to the surface of the ground and even the cold water is hot! We checked carefully for ant lines that night before putting our swags out!

Another 4.20am wake up call followed as we were getting to Uluru for sunrise, we had breakfast while watching the sun come up, again sending the rock a bright shade of red. Afterwards we completed the remaining 8km of the base walk, we started at 7am but it was already baking hot! The rock climb was closed that day, I had no intention of climbing it, Martin had been undecided so that made his mind up for him. So then it was time to return to Alice. We stopped at a camel racing farm on the way back, camels from this farm came 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the Camel Cup last year in Alice where camels race from all over the world. So we had a camel ride with a difference, walking half way and back at a run! Back in Alice 'Binky' the baby kangaroo was dropped off at his new home.