After our fantastic trip round Kakadu, we set our sights on that great Australian icon ... no not Kylie but Uluru (or Ayers Rock as it used to be known).

Now Australia is huge, not just big, but huge. It took us three days to travel from the far north Darwin down to Alice Spring (from where we then blasted out to Uluru). The trip down was great for showing us the scale of the country (did we mention it was big) and for letting us see some of the lesser known sights (including a spectacular gorge, some bizarre rock formations and some very small towns (population 8) We also managed to get in a few more desert walks and more swimming.

However these three days were the prelude to the big trip: camping out in the desert and seeing a big red rock. After more driving there it was looming out the desert like ... well a big red rock really.

So we saw the rock, walked round the rock, saw the rock at sunset, saw the rock at sunrise and read about the rock in the rock visitors' centre. So we did a lot of rock things you could say we rocked the rock. One slightly frustrating thing though everyone kept telling us how sacred the rock was to the local Aboriginal people, but wouldn't entirely explain why. Arrgggghhhh it was so frustrating we wanted to know about it and understand their culture (which everyone was telling us was amazing) but we couldn't be told because we weren't Aboriginal people ourselves ... bit racist if you ask me! Also completely different to other world 'religions' that don't half harp on about their beliefs.

As well as the rock, we also did a top walk round Kings Canyon and slept out under the stars. It was a great trip but with one disappointment. We were hoping to see lots of desert animals - kangaroos, emu and camel - but it was so damn hot that the sensible things were hiding away. To make matters worse they had been replaced by flies. Millions and millions of flies. As a result everyone had to wear very fetching fly nets on our heads as the little b*****s swarmed around our eyes, ears and noses. It was pretty vile and I'm pretty sure we ate a few. yum yum.