Got to Adelaide yesterday and walked around a bit, pretty glad was only there for one afternoon cos there wasn’t much to it and not the nicest city I've ever seen. Then at stupid o clock in the morning, think it was 6am or something I was at the offices of the tour thing I was booked on to...When I walked in I recognised a blokes face and then when I signed in I saw his name and realised he was the year below me at my primary school!! Weird, small world ehh. Nearly everyone on the tour was on their own, a French girl, English girl, couple of Dutch, Swede and four Koreans. Three nights we stayed in hostel type places and two nights in a camp where we slept in 'swags' which are basically giant sleeping bag things which have a mattress inside rolled up - you put your own sleeping back in it yourself. Garth they’re like that thing that Johnno had on Whitsundays - although he had a double one for obvious reasons!! One of the hostels we stayed at was actually dug out into a hill, all the rooms were caves and stuff - was so cool. It was in a region in the middle of no where, where they have the worlds biggest opal mines or something. Thing is they don’t let corporations come in so any land around the area is fair game - if you find some you apply for a few hundred bucks to have it registered in your name and then anything you find is yours - they all build their homes underground as it gets up to 57 degrees and a lot find that if they make an 'extension' to their place by adding a new room = it pays for itself cos they find more opals!! Max I reckon you should get your arse out here mate, get your ergonomics right on the old machines and rake in the dollar!! We had a tour of the caves and stuff which was cool. When one of the girls asked the tour guide why you’d wanna live in the middle of no where she took offence I think, there were 3000 in the town which she said was cool and everyone knew everyone....and after all she pointed out = it was 'only' a 5.5 hour drive to the nearest town (yeh great!) and some peop even did round trips in a days, so 11 hours......just to get a Maccys or KFC (she really sold me on the delights of living there...hmm) Most days we did different hikes up different hills and rock formations etc. Also got to see wild camels and loadsa wild horses which was quite cool - kangaroos everywhere. The first night where we stayed in some town with a population of 30 I think it was we had camel sausages, emu burgers and kangaroo steak. Emu was pretty nice and I love kangaroo so had quite a lot of that, mmmm. The guides were really good and knew their stuff and we learnt a lot about the aborigine way of life and culture which was cool The two days near the end of the tour we norm drove for about 4 hour stints; this country is stupidly big and sparse! Our wake up times were 6am, 4am, 4am, 4am, 5am, 6am, - splendid!! It wasn’t bad tho cod you got used to it and could do the walks and stuff before it got too hot mid day. We got to Uluru (Ayers Rock) on the 5th day, pretty god damn big rock, biggest in the world and went and saw the sunset with some bubbly. Then we did the 9k base walk around the bottom the next day, we could have done that, or seen sun rise and half the walk or climb up the rock....I decided not to do the climb cos its actually against the aborigine religion/culture and only a few of the elders of their tribe do it every year, its a very spiritual place - it would be like someone going in to a Thai temple where you have to take your shoes off with a massive pair of muddy football boots = just not done. The last day we did a 3hour walk round Kings Kanyon, which was bloody cool - massive rock formation which is all over the place. We got shown a plant which the aborigines use for punishment, called something like the milk plant it has liquid that comes out like milk...when you put it on your skin however it goes clear. to punish someone for a really bad crime they put two drops on someone’s eyes, they then cant see for a few days....If its a really bad thing they may put more and then they normally go blind cos when you add water to this substance it goes white again = your eye obviously produces tears to clean the eye - so its a vicious circle! I got to Alice springs on Friday which is in the middle of the country and leave tomorrow for a 3 day tour from here to Darwin which is at the top before doing a tour of the national park up there. 

Adelaide, Parachilna, Flinders Ranges, Wilpena Pound, Rawnsleyhttp://nottinghamac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2159141&l=7761c&id=199703881 

Coober Pedy, ULURU (Not Ayers Rock ehh)http://nottinghamac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2159142&l=9f322&id=199703881 

Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyonhttp://nottinghamac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2159144&l=873c2&id=199703881 

Kings Canyon, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Devils Marbleshttp://nottinghamac.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2159145&l=2dcca&id=199703881