Saturday 3rd October 11:00am

Alice Springs

We have been a little slow on the blogs, we know. Thanks for the gentle reminder tho mother!! Since leaving Darwin last week we got a coach to Katherine. Not too much to do in this small town. We booked into a motel (only because i nearly died when we viewed the only other hostel available) and had a great night sleep after the best dinner in the world! Neil had lamb shank pie and i had surf and turf...so much for backpacking hey!!
The following day we went to the Katherine School of Air which is the largest classroom in the world covering over a million sq km. Very interesting indeed! We walked further along the road (where there was nothing) and found the Katherine Museum. We had lovely homemade Jungle Juice made from limes and mint...yum and scones that were delicious..not as good as yours ma!! On the way back it was soooo hot Neil made a joke about thumbing a lift back...hmmm thats EXACTLY what he did!! How funny. A local guy drove us back to the motel and as far as we can remember it was the only car we saw that day!! ha!

Then the long trek to Alice Springs on the coach...took about 19 hours. Arrived at Annie's Place and checked in. Very chilled place, shared with some canadian guys who were funny. Watched the Aussie Rules final footy in the bar and kept on drinking until 11pm. (the night of the wedding) not much sleep that night with music in the background and a ver y drunk canandian who found himself a girl..need i say anymore! LOVELY!

On Monday we got up at 5am for our 3 day Ayers Rock (Uluru) tour. Carla was our tour guide. We had such a great 3 days, visting Kings Canyon and The Olgas as well as the famous rock. There is way too much to go into detail with so here are a few bullet points of our 3 days:

*Mount Conner: often confused with Ayers rock as you approach it.
*RED sand
*Meeting Cookie, Micah and Nicola..as well as 20 other great people on tour!
*3hour trek of the Olgas: spotted 2 wild Kangas!
*Sunset at Alyers rock with beer and chilli con carne cooked from the back of the van!
*Disco in the van....YEAHHHHHH (Cookie's fav word)
*campsite: grumpy man who moved our campfire booo.
*Sleeping under the stars and the moon..literally!
*Sleeping in swags. Not so pleasant for Lynsey who woke up and saw animals jumping around (they were only rabbits we think)Neil snoozed on of course!
*5am wake up: Ayers rock: we walked the base (3 hours) superb views, learnt about aboriginal culture from Carla. Felt a warm wind whilst discussing their beliefs..spooky! *Didn't do the climb out of respect for locals.
*BBQ for lunch: Neil cheif BBQer with Micah. YUM!
*Helicopter ride over Mountain ranges close to Kings canyon (only 5 mins but worth it)
*Camp again: Snake trail in the kitchen area ewwwwww
*Veg korma for dinner and a few drinking games YEEHAA
*Lynsey slept MUCH better in swag...prob exhaustion!
*5am wake up. 3 hour walk of Kings Canyon: amazing views yet again.
*6 hour drive back to Alice Springs.
*Final farewell dinner: $5 for a meal! Exchanged emails with all on tour and partied on into early hours! Great end to fab few days!

Very brief but with the pics im sure you will get the jist of it! So we slept the following day and have totally chilled in Alice trying not to spend too much dosh. Went to the supermarket and bought food which we have ccoked our own brekky, lunch and dinners for 2 days. Stayed at Annies and watched the night film which they put on a big screen over the pool.

Ready to rock in Cairns now. Flight in 6 hours!