After a very cushty night, we got up at 6 to see the 7 am sunrise, I was a little apprehensive as it was cloudy, but I was still excited to get up and see the sunrise. It took us about half an hour to get there, and unfortunately the sun was still obscured by cloud, but Uluru still looked very impressive, and we were looking at it from a different angle as well. The others were all disappointed and didn't think it was worth it, but I didn't want to be negative and to be honest I don't think Uluru could look boring or bad in any weather really! I then asked if we could stop off at the Cultural Centre, as it was on our way back, because we weren't on a tour, we don't hear all the aboriginal stories, so I wanted to learn the one surrounding Uluru. The others weren't very keen, but when we got there, they were happy I'd made them go! So anyway, to cut a long story short, it was formed by the ancestors of the aborigine tribes in the area, who were snakes, there was an aunt who's nephew was killed but the poisonous snakes, and the spears they used to fire at him landed in the rock that was there (creating the holes still present in Uluru). She was distraught and set off to kill them all, and in her anger and tears thrashed around the rock forming its shape. We set off then to see the Olgas (kata tjuta), we didn't do the Valley of the Winds walk, as it was 3 hours long and we were slightly time limited, and also I don't think my feet could have handled it after climbing Uluru! We made our way then to King's Canyon, which was slightly disappointing as the sun had still not appeared, and there are only so many rocks you want to take pictures of in cloud, I know if the sun had been out, the rocks would have been glowing! We again got out a couple of times to do a few walks, and on one of them when I was passing my camera (dad's camera) for someone to take a photo, I let go before they had a hold of it and it unfortunately broke :( Luckily I could still get some ok shots on my Video recorder, but the quality wasn't as good.
Arthur then drove us for the first part of the journey home, as it was at least 5 hours and Marlene was tired so needed a nap, Tom had wanted to drive but Marlene said no because he didn't even have a license! Which turned out to be a very lucky move, because as we were coming to a junction there was a police stop, and they asked us to pull over, we were all obviously thinking F*** because with our car rental company you have to be 21 to drive, luckily some allow 18 year olds too, and Arthur had his license on him, all they wanted to do was a breathalyzer, which he obviously passed, so that was lucky! Marlene then took over when we stopped to fill up for petrol a few minutes later. We saw quite a lot of wildlife today as well, an eagle right on the side of the road eating a dead kanga, and a dingo which ran off into the bush and also there were two kangas hopping next to our car as the evening drew in. We killed hundreds of bugs as they splatted on the windscreen and there were hundreds of mice all over the road, and instead of staying put ran across the road so we squished quite a few of them as well, there were some blood stains on the bonnet..We were racing against time though because the hostel closed the gates at 8 if we wanted to park in the car park, we got back just in time as about 5 minutes after we arrived, the gates closed! We didn't stay up late really, as we were all tired and had a relatively early start the next day as well!