Hi again, here's what we've been up to..... From Cairns we flew to Ayers Rock; can you believe three hours of flying only gets you half way across this massive country. Stepping off the plane, we realised that this was a new type of heat - dry but hot, very hot. It was windy but the wind was hot, not just warm, like proper HOT, just like having a hair dryer pointed right in your face!!!!

We stayed at the cheapest rooms in the Ayers Rock resort which has a monopoly on the accommodation - one company owns the whole resort and this is the only place to stay for thousands of km's. That evening we bought a cheap bottle of bubbly and walked up to a lookout for our first sunset view of Uluru (Ayers Rock) with a few drinks. This was great because we were the only people there and it was so quiet, and magical. I got a class picture when I set up the camera on the timer to take a picture of us sat on a branch in front of Uluru, but as I sat down the branch broke (check out the photos).

The next day we joined a four wheel drive tour of the 'Red Centre'; we spent these next few days with a top group of people from all corners of the globe including the funniest local gal from Darwen, Lancashire. We visited the Olgas, which are a whole group of mini (although not much smaller) Ayers Rocks. They were beautiful but the lasting memory of this day was the heat - it got to 125 degrees fahrenheit (thats 52 degrees celcius)! We watched the sun set over the outback and Ayers rock again, this time much closer but also with about a thousand other people, so it wasn't quite so intimate. The next morning we got up dead early to watch the sun rise over the rock and this was really gorgeous - the sun hits the rock before the surrounding bush, so you can really see it in all its glory, changing colour gradually. That morning we were possibly going to climb up the rock but high winds prevented us - there is this big discussion as to whether you should or you shouldn't climb Ayers rock because it is a sacred site for the local Aboriginals and it is kind of offensive to them to climb it. Anyway, we walked the whole perimeter of the rock instead which was fascinating because of all the different rock faces and character changes.

We drove gradually North for mile after mile of endless nothingness on and off-road in our 4x4 - the country is so dramatic in its desolation. We drove through one cattle station that covered an area of three million acres (and this was a small one!). We visited Kings Canyon and lots of other little canyons in the Mackenzie range - we liked to go swimming to escape the heat. The other thing about the red centre was the friggin flies! Flies, millions of flies. Just normal flies i.e. they didn't bite you, but they just flew up your nose, in your eyes, in your ears, endlessly, billions of them. I will not miss the flies! Each night we slept out in swags (which are heavy duty sleeping bag thingys); this was fantastic (the flies disappeared after dark), it was cooler than sleeping in the tents - the temperature got down to 33oC at night and in the absence of any light pollution, the stars were just amazing.

After four great but exhausting days we made it Alice Springs. It was nice to properly wash the red dust out of our clothes, skin and eyes. In Alice Springs we checked out the Royal Flying Doctors service where we bumped into Debbie and Olaf again (from Great Barrier reef diving) - very bizarre. We also visited a reptile centre to see all the snakes and lizards that we had managed to survive. For some reason I decided to wrap a snake around my neck, which made me feel a bit queasy afterwards.

Next flight was to Darwin on the North coast - our last stop in Oz. We had purposely not planned too much for our few days in Darwin because we intended to use the time to recover and also to plan our time in Asia a little. Anyway, it didn't turn out to be so relaxing at all because Sarah unfortunately got really ill. A few days of excrutiating stomach cramps, very little sleep, cries of "Am I going to die?" and a hospital visit later and all was well. So much to planning Asia though, we'll sort it out on the plane...