What a busy few days.

Got off to a slow start though: Alice Springs is quite a sleepy little town really. Totally out in the middle of nowhere. Looking out the window on my flight into Alice was quite a sight - miles and miles of totally flat arid land and desert as far as you can see in every direction. Nice view from the top of Anzac hill though and a decent cultural centre in which to pass the time on Friday. The local Aboriginal people believe that the local landscape was made by some giant caterpillars who lay down and became the MacDonnell Ranges when they were done. Not sure I buy that somehow.

Got picked up bright and early on Saturday morning at 5:55am (little did I realise at the time that this would count as a lie in!) and headed out to our camp site. When I say 'headed out' don't think that means the campsite was just around the corner. In fact there are very few things that are close together in the Northern Territory and there are very few corners for that matter. Once out of town we drove several hundred kilometres and only had to make one turning.

We stopped at a camel farm on the way for a quick ride round the enclosure. Camels are strange beasts when they decide to run and they don't make for the most comfortable ride when they do it either.

Everyone pitched in to prep lunch. I could write another entire blog just about the food for this trip - I'm not going to have to eat anything for months after this. Good thing too as I won't have any money left... Then went for a hike through the valley of the winds in Kata Tjuta, the current and Aboriginal name for what used to be called the Olgas. The view at the end was breathtaking. Then we drove accross to watch sunset at Uluru (Ayres Rock). Sadly, cloud cover made it a bit of a no-show but there was a compensatory sunset over Kata Tjuta instead which looked pretty nice.

Slept that night out in swags around the camp fire after another feast. Woke up (very early) to see the sky full of stars. Made it back onto the bus for sunrise over Uluru. Got a couple of really nice pics of Uluru in silhouette. Then we walked round the base of the Rock (you can climb it but the Aboriginals don't like people doing it and it involves a very steep 'path' with just a rope to hang onto which I don't think mum would have liked too much!) Got to see some pretty cool rock paintings as we went round. You can't photograph the whole of the rock because there are some sacred sites specific to men and women. Once the National Geographic published a photo of a women's site in their magazine. An aboriginal man saw it and had to be punished severely by his tribe. Hence no photos anymore.

That night was the best of the trip by far: all sat round the camp fire, cake, marshmallows, beer, guitar and camp fire songs. Joel, who also happens to be on exchange at UNSW and has been a great travel companion, and I became quite a photo opportunity for our fellow japanese traveller! Our camp was the last to bed that night. Another great sleep under the stars.

But another early start. Final day walking round Kings Canyon. Quite an impressive structure and a very green spot amongst lots of desert. We got some good photos that mum probably doesn't want to see as we were pretty high up. After lunch we headed all the way back to Alice Springs. Joel beat me by 1 second on the weetabix eating contest (you ever tried eating dry weetabix? It's not as pleasant as it is with milk!) but more importantly the brits thrashed the Australians. benno (tour guide) wasn't happy - first the ashes, now the weetabix competition!

Benno has been a great guide - a real character. It's hard to imagine him in his previous job as an accountant! We all had a feed at Annies Place to celebrate the end of the trip and then made it on to the club/bar (I do mean 'the' - there's only one place open for drinking past 10pm in Alice). A great first half to my trip.