....Pottering round a rock in the rain

Eeeek, after taking about two weeks to get round to writing this one up, I've just spent ages doing just that and have clicked on something and lost it all. This has happened to me so many times, why do I not learn and write it in Word or Notepad first??

Right have about 10 people staring at the back of my head praying for me to get off the computer so will make this very brief.

So the train ride down to Alice was fab, great service and facilities and totally dead so had about a million seats to myself. Also met some fellow backpackers so was all very jolly.

But all good things come to an end so after 27 hours of watching the outback roll by we hit Alice and filtered off to our hostels. I had a couple of free days either side of my big  trip, but to be honest didn't see much of the town as my main reason for being there was for the 3-day Red Centre safari, which was brilliant.

Won't outline the full itinery but basically had three very early starts (like 5.30am!) and three days of seeing the Olgas (rock formation near Ayers Rock) Ayers Rock itself, and Kings Canyon (the biggest canyon in the world - the Grand Canyon is actually a gorge - apparently).

Had a really nice groups of people, all young and no couples - whoo hoo! Even had four British girls onboard - bonus!

It was all really good fun including the camping where we didn't even use tents (they are for sissies); we swagged out under the stars and it was so cool! (Some of the girls were a  bit scared about bugs and spiders etc, but I was very brave, even when we heard a pack of coyotes howling in the distance...

We saw the sunset and rise over / on the rock and that was really beautiful, but what was most 'special' was the rain which defyed all laws of science and in one of the driest regions in the world soaked us through when were attmepting to do the base walk (our driver had to come and rescue us halfway round it was so bad!) But it did provide us with the opportunity to see waterfalls cascading down the rock, something that certainly doesn't happen every day....

So met some really nice people, saw lots of amazing natural wonders and wildlife, and covered hundreds of KM's over the three days. Definitely money well spent.

Back in Alice I enjoyed a day of rather lovely weather there (sun - imagine that!) before jetting off to my next destination of Cairns. Bit of a splurge to Qantas it over, but was a two hour flight versus two days on the Greyhound. And I didn't regret it.