Well, I made it to Darwin after a rather busy week in the outback.

Went on a tour called "The Rock", which with my name is rather appropriate. Basically, this meant another 21 person bus, another whole load of driving to Uluru, Kings Canyon and the Olgas. You got to experience a "5 million star hotel" by basically sleeping in a swag under the stars and tried your hardest not to think about snakes, spiders, dingos and camels. This was all lovely, and during teh day it was baking. However, being a desert at night it was bloody freezing! Getting up at 4.30am every day to watch the sun rise is very romantic, but I've ditched all my winter clothes! Everyone soon learnt not to talk to me until I'd walked at least one km and warmed up.

So, to the walking, in 3 days we did over 25kms! Firstly to Uluru. Now I didn't climb it as the tour guide put us on such a guilt trip, and it looked hard, and I'm scared of the Abbos. So we opted for the base walk. Man, this Rock is MASSIVE! 11kms round the base, really surprised us all how huge it was! Its got a really weird texture about it like rusting metal close up too. We made it in the end, and then went to watch sunset over it. It looked alot like the pictures as it glowed red in the light. Next morning we watched sunrise (but as already mentioned, it was cold) which I also have some good photos of. Oh yeah, and your not allowed to call it Ayres Rock.

The Olgas are big red bumps... a bit like little Ulurus. There are 34 of them in total, so we all went on a walk through the Valley of the winds to check them out. More amazing photos, and alot less busy then Uluru. This was only 7kms, so was alright until the last km when you walked up a massive hill and thought you were dieing!

Lastly went to Kings Canyon to watch sunrise. Now the first past of this walk is actually called "heart attack hill" so you can imagine how impressed I was to learn we were going to walk it in the dark. It was pretty hard going, but then you could walk the top of the canyon and this was really amazing. More amazing photos. I think Kings canyon was my favourite.

Went straight from the tour onto "the Ghan" famous train from Alice to Darwin for 24 hours. Really was over the desert by this point, so it was a bit rubbish. Got off at Katherine which was a scary outback town. Pleased to be in Darwin and trying to decide what on earth I'm going to do for two weeks! The journey continues!

PS- This Blog won;t let me say a******!?! Its a card game! See last blog entry!