I waited outside the hostel at 5:30am for my bus to pick me up for my one day tour to Uluru. The coach had mostly old couples on it and there was about 20 people on the trip. But not having any young people to chat to meant that I could catch up on my sleep! I managed to catch up on quite a bit of sleep as the journey was about 5 hours long! We stopped off at Fool-Uru which is a mountain which from a distance looks like Uluru. We then stopped at Yuluru resort which has a hotel and information centre there.

We drove to the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) which are a group of large domed rock formations and we did a walk up to the top of it. They gave us 45 minutes to do it and said that we wouldn't get to the end of it but I got to the end at the same time as two young guys from my group and made a comment to them about the fact that we'd made it and subsenquently started chatting to them. On my way back down I chatted to one of them who was called Dan and is from Somerset. He had come over on a working visa with a friend but his friend had to go home due to health problems so he was now travelling on his own. We then stopped at a cultural centre and leearnt about the Aboriginals and Uluru. It said not to climb the rock out of respect for the Aboriginals as they believe that the spirits of their loved ones who have passed away are at the top of the rock and that it is a sacred place so i decided that I would not do the climb. Instead we did a guided walk round some of the base with guide telling us about dreamtime stories and pointing out the nature.

We then went and picked up the three guys who had climbed the rock and one of them showed me his photo's which did look really impressive. He did say that it was really steep and extremely hot though. And he'd seen one of the most disgusting and huge spiders up there!

We then drove to the viewing area to see the sunset over Uluru. We did a quick walk and then came back to have a glass of champagne and have some dinner. I sat with Dan and chatted to him and found out all about each other (he's 27 and used to be in the army but is now a ranger in Yeovil Country Park). We then stood and watched the sunset which was really nice but I had expected a more dramatic change of colour in the rock.

At 7pm we boarded the bus to head back to Alice Springs and I said to Dan that if he got bored that he was welcome to sit with me and he said that I could sit with him at the back. I decided to watch some of A Knights Tale which they played on the coach and have a sleep and then when we stopped for a toilet break I saw Dan and said I'd sit with him. I sat in the row in front of him and we chatted and he asked if I wanted to grab a drink in Alice Springs when we got back. I said that maybe he should ask the guide if the bar would be open at 12pm and as they thought it would we arranged to be dropped off there. We went to Bojangles and he bought me a drink and we sat and chatted. A group of barely 18 year olds were on a table behind us and they kept waving and smiling at us and one came and sat next to Dan for a bit - Aussie's are very friendly!! The bar closed just after 1am and then Dan said he'd walk me back to my hostel. When we got to my hostel he asked if I was on facebook and we exchanged details and he said he'd had a fun day.