Day 118 - The outback tour starts! Kings Canyon - Saturday 11th February 2012

Just as we were drifting into a dream filled sleep, the alarm went off. 4am was here! We dragged our bags into the hallway and quickly packed ready for our pick up. The ever charming lady behind the front desk grunted at us to leave our sheets in the pile so we quickly checked out and bundled into the van. Our tour guide was Jim; a very friendly guy in a proper Australian style hat (minus the mini corks hanging from the brim. In our group was us and another couple called Rachel and Chris - only 4 of us for the trip instead of the usual 18!!

Jim gave us a run down for the next couple of days; we were to spend 2 days and 1 night with him and Rachel and Chris to do the Kings Canyon and Uluru and then we would separate and join another group for the rest of our trip. We were also going to cover some km's over the course of the trip - a massive 3,800 km's in all! A lot of time in the van it seemed!

So once we'd been to the office to sign in, we were off on our first road trip adventure and after 3 hours we arrived at our first service station stop right bang in the middle of Central Australia. We stopped to refuel, have a nose at the massive road trains and also spotted some Emu's and a Wedge tail Eagle on the side of the road.

Back on the road and another 2 hours passed with Jim giving us information along the way all the way; he talked us through the history of the Stewart and Giles Highway - both named after famous explorers of Australia. Then we arrived at the Kings Canyon; the scenery was spectacular and we were promised that it was even better once we got to the top - first though we had to climb the aptly named Heartbreak hill. This was a very steep and rugged climb but as we'd caught up on most of our sleep in the bus and we were a small group we were up the high quite quickly. The views from the North and South Walls were awesome and as we made our way round the top the views and the rock formations became more and more impressive. The other thing that hit us was the silence and tranquillity of it all - made even more noticeable by the fact that we were the only people up there.

After working our way around and stopping to hear Jim's explanation on the various plants, rocks and animals we made our way down the stairs to the Garden of Eden. This was a pool of water right in the bottom of the middle of the gorge and here we sat, eat biscuits and took in the view.

After 3 hours of exploring, we worked our way back to the van and made our way to a little campsite for our lunch stop. We prepared lots of salad and meet and made sandwiches followed by a good cup of tea! The flies in the outback are a different league to anything we've experience before - they are mental! They seem to like trying to get into any hole in your body; meaning that your eyes, ears, nose and mouth are under constant attack - at one point Jim even accidently swallowed one! Apparently there is a joke that flicking flies from your face is actually the Australian salute - we now completely understand this!

We finished our lunch and retreated to the van to start our next journey onto Uluru, better known as Ayers Rock. The plan was to try and get there for sunset but as it was still another 3 to 4 hour drive it was going to be tight. With this in mind, Jim put his foot down and our little van sped off into the red dust highway towards our destination and just as the sun was setting we arrived at a little hill just 20km out of the Uluru complex. From there, we sat and took in the amazing sight of the sun setting on Uluru and Kata Tjuta.

Once the sun had set we drive to our campsite and started our dinner for the evening; Jim cooked up a storm and we were treated to BBQ'ed camel sausages, kangaroo fillets, steaks, potatoes with cream and cheese and salad. Absolutely stuffed and knackered, we headed to our tent to get some well needed kip. Tomorrow is to be another 4am start!!