I had to get up at 4.30am on Friday to get picked up by my tour bus for my 2 day camping trip to Uluru. It was so early it was hideous, and had to creep around the room in the dark so I was worried I'd left something important behind.

Normally the tour groups are around 20 apparently but I was lucky enough to be in a group of 8. There was an american couple, 2 german girls, a canadian and an older austrian couple. Our tour guide was an australian from Melbourne, one of the few aussies I've met since being out here as most of the hostels and tourist places are full of foreigners!

It was about a 5 hour drive through the outback from Alice Springs to our first stop which was Kings Canyon. It's hard to grasp how little there is out there. I kind of thought we would run into loads of tour buses with it being such a popular place but the roads were empty. There was just miles and miles of red sand as far as the eye can see. I did spot a dingo though!

We grabbed lunch before tackling the rim walk around the top of Kings Canyon. This walk started with 'heart attack hill'; this probably wasn't that severe if it was in the UK but in the sweltering heat it was challenging to say the least. Felt so dizzy when I got to the top I thought I might just fall off the side of the cliff. There were copious amounts of flies everywhere, and we all had the really attractive fly head nets to keep them away! They were pretty useless though because it still felt like they were landing on your face, so in the end I just gave up on it. Fortunately there was a breeze at the top so it kept some of them away.  The climb to the top was well worth it though, we walked around the rim of the canyon and had amazing views right out over the desert.

After the walk we dashed over, about 2 hours drive (!), to Uluru to try to catch the sunset from the top of a sand dune but unfortunately it was overcast so we didn't really see anything that exciting.

For dinner we had a traditional aussie barbie, well minus the shrimp(!), with a ridiculous amount of food. I think they'd catered for a full group. Then we were sleeping out under the stars in a swag. This is basically just a thin padded mat with a canvas cover. I was slightly concerned that things were going to jump on me in the night but they didn't. And the view from your bed was amazing, you could see all the milky way and millions of stars.

The next day we were up at 4.30am again for a chance to catch sunset. We did the 3 hour walk around the base, but again it was overcast so we only had a brief few seconds when the sun broke through and we had a glimpse of the amazing colours of uluru. It was still a pretty amazing experience though, it's enourmous and has so many hidden crevices and caves.

 Following a walk through Kata Tjuta, it was time to leave. The bus was heading back to Alice but I was catching my flight from Ayers Rock Resort. It saved me a 6 hour bus journey but I was sad to see them go. Especially as they were planning a night out in Alice and I missed it, damn travel agent!

 I'm so glad I made it to Uluru, it was totally awe-inspiring, and suprisingly I loved the desert.