Over the past few days I have realised something....I am turning into my Mother. I have started to read my lonely planet guide book whenever we go somewhere new to read up on the place and I have just started reading it aloud to all my fellow passengers on the bus. The only difference between me and my Mum is that the fellow passengers want to hear about it too and we are on a bus for about 6 hours so it passes a bit of time!!

So I left Adelaide and boarded another 'happy bus' for a 6 day trip up to Alice Springs. The first stop we had was a rather random village called Quorn (Claydo-I thought of you!) and we stayed in a really really nice private house thing that had free washing machines and dryers - woohoo! and a TV lounge - woooooo! To be fair there was nothing else to do in the evenings but still I got to watch a Home and Away episode in Australia!!

The first place we visited on the tour was Yourambulla Caves which had real Aboriginal drawings in which was pretty cool and then we went to a Homestead Ruin. Basically it was a house or something that was now a ruin but one thing really bugged me. The way they had restored it, they had literally slapped a bit og concreate over the walls and that was it. I really didnt like it as I just thought they had ruined the ruin! That evening I had my first taste of Kangaroo for tea and I must say it was delicious! It was very tasty! Then it was Crocodile Dundee in the TV lounge - woohoo!! Loved it!

The next day we had a lie in (breakfast at 730!) and we went to Wilepina Pound for lovely 8k walk. I remember it was lovely but dont remember anything else so I dont think much happened there!! Follwing this lovely non event I went to Warren Gorge where we had to be really quiet (I had some trouble!) and we saw rare yellow footed Wallebys, that was pretty cool! Then we went to a real local Aussie pub where you walked in and people stared! I had to try the local Bundaberg Rum and I am pleased I have just discovered it because it was lovely and I would be skint as it is expensive! For tea it was Kanagroo, Buffalo and Camel! I had them all, yum yum! I am getting very adventerous in my food (or maybe I am just really hungry?). Another film tonight, The Nugget which is an Aussie film that was ok, not much of a story but at least it was pretty short! I also managed a few notes on a digeridoo which I was pretty proud of myself for being not very musical!

We went to Lake Hart the next day for a short walk (about 500metres!) but there were way too many flies for me and I had aquired 6 celebrity gossip magazines and I still had a bag of haribo to eat so I stayed on the bus and read them. I was so happy! I felt very much like myself after a few weeks of doing crazy (or crazy for me) things! So after I had caught up on whats happening with Liz Hurly, Christina Agularia, and co we arrived into Coober Pedy which is an opal town. I again started to behave like my Mother, I went into a church and took photos - it was built into the rock so that was the reasoning behind it! We went to an opal mine tour which to be fair was made for kids or the guide thought we were children as I felt like a school kid the way we were talked to but the gift shop was awesome! I bought some earrings! We then had a suprise, we went to a Kanagroo Orphanage and I got to hold a baby Kanagroo called Axel, he was way cute. I tried to smuggle him out but I was caught - damn it! I did my 'good deed of the trip' too and donated some money to them. I also found a piece of pink aboriginal art work so I bought that too-it was a good place for shopping Coober Pedy! We were sleeping underground in what I can only describe as a bunker, but it was huge and it was nice to have some space to yourself as you had a cubical each.

The next day we rose wearly to watch the sun rise and we had a noodle, which is where we looked for opals ourselves in the ground, it was dark so not much success unfortunately!! We then drove for 800k and went to Kata Tjuta National park for a walk into the centre. It was lovely and Kata Tjuta was lovely, kinda looked like a cross between Homer Simpson lying down and golf balls! Then it was time for the sun to set over Ayres Rock, I got some fantasic photos! That night we had a funny game of UNO and then I slept in a swag outside under the stars, I dont know why I did because we had tents but I just decided that I wanted to sleep outside and got half the group to join me. The stars were lovely!

I was up to my old tricks again the next day as I started taking thousands of pictures (ok, hundreds) of more rocks, it was Ayres rock but still! We saw the sun rise over the rock and also could see Kata Tjuta and then we walked around the entire base of it, 9km but all the different sides of the rock were quite spectacular. I didnt realise that it was still used by the Aboriginal people today so there were places that you couldnt walk take photos of but I got some great snaps. We then went to the cultural centre and I had great fun reading the 'sorry book'. Basically if you take a rock it gives you really bad luck so people who took them were returning them, it was funny reading what had happened and also how they had addressed them, to 'the rock at Ayres' and 'the people of the land' to the 'park rangers' - it was a hoot! So after a long day at Ayres rock we had a camp fire and I roasted some marshmallows, yum yum yum, and we had a little sing song round the fire with a guitar. I also got to play the digaridoo a little more and have some funny photos. Again it was sleep time in the swag but this time it was even better because there was no light so the stars were really bright and I saw a shooting star. We also had a book and a talk about the constellations so I turned into a little geek!

Another day, another rock and we went to Kings Canyon and had a great walk up to the top and around it, this was pretty special the ampitheatre, the lost city, the garden of eden were all spectacular and I loved another opprotunity to take more photos of rocks...... then we arrived into Alice Springs. I am absolutly shattered! We have had 4 days of waking up at 5am, and tomorrow its another 5am start for the trip to Darwin! I need my beauty sleep tonight!