Two days later we arrived in Alice Springs and the spent the day showering (a must after that bus journey), chilling and wandering around the town. On Sunday the 24th we were picked up bright and early at 6am for the start of our 3 day rock tour. Our first stop was Kings Canyon where we did a 3 hour guided hike, learning lots of facts about the area from Joel. We also had a trainee guide, Scott who was learning the ropes, and chipped in every now and again. On route to where we were spending our first night we had to stop off and wrestle with some dead trees, still in the ground for some firewood. Joel and Scott turned out to be proper George's of the Jungle, hanging off branches as if it is an everyday occurrence, though I guess for them it probably is. We then headed to Curtin Springs, the cattle farm which only has 12 people living on it, yet it is the size of England, needless to say they did a lot of mileage on their tractors to round up the cattle. The boys got the campfire started whilst the girls set up kitchen and started cooking. We made Chilli and pasta, roasted veg and traditional Dampa bread which was yummy. We then went for a walk to see the stars at their best and after five minutes of staring the both of us finally saw a shooting star here. YAY. We headed back to the camp area, wrapped ourselves up in lots of layers and got into our swags, which are made out of canvas, have a little mattress inside of them and look like a sleeping bag. This meant we were properly sleeping out under the stars in the middle of the desert which was amazing.

We awoke nice and early at 5.30 the next morning, had some breakfast and headed for the Uluru bush camp where we were able to freshen up before going to Kata Tjuta - The Olgas. Joel and Scott gave us an introduction to the area and then the group split up, one group going with the guides on a 5.9km walk and the rest of us going on a 7.3km walk. The only thing getting us up a masssssssive hill made of rocks to where we were meeting up with the others again was knowing that at the top there were cake and biscuits waiting for us! After that Joel gave us more historic facts and then we went to have lunch before going to the Aboriginal Cultural Centre.

We then headed to Uluru / Ayres Rock where we did the Mala Walk which was a guided section of the Base Walk around the rock. After that we headed to tourist central where we were surrounded by loads of tour buses and tourists just like us excited to see the Uluru sunset and colour change. We went back to the camp site where we at around the fire chatting and listening to some of the guys play the guitar.

The following morning we went back to Uluru, to a different parking spot to watch the sunrise over the rock which was so pretty. We then did the Base Walk around the rock in arctic conditions at 7.30am. It took us around an hour and a half to walk the 8kms before getting back to the bus and eating cake and biscuits again. Once everyone was back we headed back to Alice Springs where the group met for dinner and drinks.

On Wednesday the 27th we had another 6.30am start to get picked up for our tour down to Adelaide. We were devastated as the bus didn't seem to have an iPod connector, but then Seems remembered that we brought out a tape player connecter which you can't use in most cars anywhere anymore, except these tour buses, yay. Everyone else in the bus wanted to just sleep the time so the two of us took it in turns to ride shotgun and play DJ. We were half an hour into the trip when Andy our guide decided to tell us that he had never driven with a trailer before, or driven a bus like the one we were in, or even done a tour alone before! He was training up as an Uluru guide with another company, but got told the day before that he has to do this trip because the usual guide hurt his back on the way up from Adelaide to Alice Springs. This worked out well for us because we got better food, seeing as he didn't know what is usually bought, and we also deviated from the itinerary and went to a few places which we wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise.

The first day was pretty much just driving before we headed into Coober Pedy, which is the Opal Capital of the World, and most people who live there live in dugouts underground, because in the summer it gets too hot and in the winter it gets too cold so it is a nice constant 22^c for them. First we watched a dvd and learnt about the mining industry on Coober Pedy before going into some dugouts and seeing how people live down there. It was like living in the seventies.. we loved it. We also got to see some real opal still embedded within the dugout walls. After that we had a lovely dinner in a local award winning pizza place before going back to our own dugout hostel for the night.

The next morning we had an early breakfast and headed south towards Adelaide. We were driving for about an hour when Andy realised he had forgotten to fill the van up with diesel, and we wouldn't make the next 160kms to the service station. So at around 8am the van pretty much conked out and came to an abrupt halt, leaving us stranded on the side of the highway with no phone reception, and the next emergency phone was still 40kms away. So we did what anyone would do and stood the the road and stuck out out thumbs. Less than 10 minutes later two guys saw us and stopped. We asked them if they had any diesel in a can, but they uht used petrol. However they said that when they get to the next service station which was an hour away they would let the people there know we had broken down and get them to come and help us.

Although they were on the case to help us, we thought we would still try and see if anyone else passing had any diesel. We managed to flag down two couples travelling in camper vans and luckily one of the vans had a can of diesel, so we bought that off him but then realised that because we had completely run out of diesel the engine would need bleeding, and no-one knew how to do that!! So whilst Andy was on the case Sheens went further down the road to see if anyone else would stop, a road train was on the other side of the road so he stopped for us and luckily he knew what to do, he got the spanner out and bled the engine for us. About an hour after stopping we were on our way again. After around 40 minutes we saw the original two guys overtake us, so we pulled over again and they had gone to buy 60 litres of diesel for us. They had gone two hours out of their way to help us, they said the guys at the service station were not very helpful, and they couldn't leave us stranded!! So we filled up on the side of the road again and then were on our way again, without the help if those lovely Australian's who knows how long we would have been there!!
So only after an hour of delay we were cruising again. We stopped off at one of the salt lakes, Lake Hart, which had some water in, which was very rare as this country is in a drought. Then we carried on driving into the city of Adelaide. Sheens navigated all the drop off as Andy didn't know where all the hostels were. We then all got ready and met for dinner and a dance!!

We had a well deserved lie in on Friday 29th May, had a lazy morning and then hit the shops in the afternoon. We then met Seema's friend for dinner not far from our hostel, she then showed us her part of town. Saturday 30th May we were up early again for a tour of the Barossa Wine Valley our German roommate Carina was on the same tour as well. We went to four winery's for tastings, Jacobs Creek, Vine Crest, Richmond Grove and then Seppalt & Sons. We didn't get as tipsy as we thought we would seeing as we are not really wine drinkers. Our driver did BBQ at the grounds of Richmond Grove, and Sheens tasted Kangaroo for the first time. It was just like any steak really.

On Sunday we and our German roommate Carina took the tram to Glenelg. It was about 30 minutes away and was a lovely beach town. As it was a bit chilly we only spent an hour there before returning to the city to see all the historic buildings of Adelaide.