well the last few days in Sydney where pretty quiet in comparison to the 1st 7, we all are feeling the long night drinking until 3am now so we have a quiet day in the pub instead! we watch the boxing and have a couple of pints....hair of the dog of course! im all packed and ready to rock out of sydney and fly to Alice Springs for my outback adventure, something ive always dreamed about doing. a short 3.5 hour flight into the northern territory over many thousands of miles of desert brings me to the sweltering hot town of Alice Springs, aboridgional capital of Australia. i step off the plane into a curtain of 44+ degrees of heat! it nearly knocks me off my feet! i thought Vegas was hot but this place was something else. middle of the northern territory it seems a world away and decades behind the hustle and bustle of the city.

i jump onto a town shuttle and head for the town, passing the Todd River which hasnt run in nearly 2 years! i get checked into my hostel and take a sweaty walk into town to check out the sights.......there wasnt many, infact i was told once i was back that walking the streets of Alice alone isnt a clever thing to do for 1, its rediculously hot and 2, the aboridgonies take a liking to tourists and see them as an easy target........gulp! oh well least im back safe! an early night follows as im up at 5:30am to catch my trip.

i wake nice and early to catch my bus, i wont be back to alice springs now for 3 days so a small backpack with the essentials in (water, vest tops, a banana + my bush hat) was the only option to save on space in the bus! i travel with 17 others on the trip, a real mixture of nationalities but all young and looking forward to the trip ahead! we drive for around 5 hours, deep into the bush to Kings Canyon, an area created over millions of years from many ice ages. ice is probably th last thing you would imagine out here, its stinking hot! the guides advice us to take 3 litres of water with us as we are planning a 3 hour hike over rocking ground in over 40 degrees of heat! not something you would fancy doing on a day to day basis but these guys do. once we start our hike up heart attack hill!!! we are looking over 100's of miles of bush land! it all looks pretty green for a change as they have had quite a lot of rain in the last 2 months! infact they say it rained for the 1st time here in 9 years last month! so you can imagine when it does rain, it pours! water just stands and flows into creeks on the dry barron landscape. we hike on and end up at the Garden of Eden where we were promised a swim which did look amazing and so inviting when your all sweaty however over on the horizon was a huge thunder storm ploughing it way straight towards us! we are adviced by rangers over a radio to get out of the canyon ASAP! When it rains in the canyon it soon becomes a torrent of fast flowing water!!! so we basically start running for our lives! you will be pleased to know we did make it back but with not long to spare! phew.....!

so the heavens opened, the temp cools to a pleasent 30 degrees! and we drive on away from the storm. 3 hours later we arrive at our bush camp for the night! its dry here, good job as we are sleeping out under the stars tonight! we rustle up some fine grub and fill our empty bellies next to a roaring fire watching the sunset over the desert with a distant rumble of thunder in the background! kind of a special moment! we get shown the toilet (a shovel and a tree) our beds for the night (a swag) and told we will have to watch out for snakes, lizzards and the odd dingo when we stroll out to do our business. also we get told to sleep on our shoes as some dingos came into camp last week and stole 5 shoes! we all bed down with a can or 5 of beer watching the stars and listening to the bush at night! a real experience i must say!

we get woken early, well 5am the time we where getting up anyway by the lightening and thunderstorm approahing. i had woke up several times during the night just to watch the lightening show which was going on around us. so we roll up our swags, down some warm brekkie and head off towards Kata Tjuta (the ulgas). its an area of many dome shaped rocks and is a sacred aboridgional area for men! its an amazing yet strange place, after seeing nothing but barron flat desert for so long these huge towering rocks raise high up into the sky. this area is only open from 5am until 11am as its to hot to walk anytime after so we start our 7km hike at around 7am! its a great walk seeing all sorts of wildlife, few roos, many lizzards, managed to spot a couple of camels chilling out as they do....! we walk though a huge gorge between 2 of the ulgas and into an aborigional hunting ground! a beautiful place, which is fresh with green vegitation and the sound running water, time for a swim i think.......! after a dip and a short walk back to the bus we then drive on to Uluru (ayres rock) to complete a couple of base hikes. Uluru is an amazing place, again a sacred place for Aboridgional women this time. its HUGE! breath-takingly beautiful we a graced with a heavy storm and terrencial rain! you may think oh no! but actually rain is even more spectacular! imagine a vast amount of rain falling onto a huge rock, waterfalls spout from nowhere and cascade down into the basin of the rock! this very rarely happens out here. infact a ranger we came acorss on a walk said he hasnt seen it this intense like this in all the time he has worked at the rock, 9 years!!! it was pretty awesome. still in the high 20's so nice and warm to walk in the rain, we do 2 walks going to see aboridgional painting in some caves and worship places! we all where now thinking about sunset and the lack of it as it was bucketing it down! the main reason why people come to Uluru! however like magic the rain stops, bright blue skys appear and the sun beats down to dry out the giant red rock in no time at all. all the waterfalls we saw at the start of the walk where now none existant! so we are all in party spirit now, we drive down to the sunset viewing area where we knock up some tucka and watch the sunset with several beers. we are 1st there to the viewing point so we get prime location, within 2 hours of us getting there another 20 coaches and around 300 people turn out! mainly japanesse who had paid over $1000 for champagne and sunset over the rock, so $1000 for about 30 minutes! id paid $300 for 3 days of outback bush cmaping and adventure! thye sure know how to make some money out here! so we party on long into the night after the amazing sunset, changing the rock into many different shades of red! pretty spectacular! we are all fairly drunk, not good when you have to be up at 4am to see sunrise! we bed down around 12!

sunrise, hungover, not a good look but still its awesome just been out here sleeping under the stars everynight and experiencing this whole outback life! again the japs are back in there droves! this time no champagne but a warm blanket and a cuppa tea! i prefer my wheatabix personally! again its an awesome sight seeing the sun 1st hit the side of the worlds biggest rock! we watch for an hour and then head off to the base walk start point! again we have to hike early in the morning as it gets extemely hot, 7am we start our 9km base hike all the way around Uluru! it was nice to do it but after an hour you have seen the rock far to much and your ready for a lay down! exhausted, i finish the hike in 1.45 hrs!!! pretty quick! i get to chill out while the other struggle around it. once all back we have a bite to eat and head of back to alice! 6 hour drive. it had been an awesome 3 days around the Uluru national park, somewhere i will come back too and would love to spend more time out here in the Northern territory. on the drive in to Alice we see the Todd River is flowing! must have had some serious rain. apparently if you see the Tood flow 3 times in your lifetime you become a local, so that makes me 1/3 Northern Territory local!!!!! haha so once back and freshened up, hadnt showered for 3 days! we all get together for a final meal at Toddys bar and i get up and play the didgeridoo to the best of my abilities! i was quite suprised at my playing......think i might buy one! ;-) we also wash the night away with several beers!!!! i have an early raise again in the morning to head for Adelaide!

6am, im up hungover agian!!! not good, i have a 2 day drive, 1560km in the back of a 4x4 to Adelaide ahead of me! i meet up with the guys on the trek and take my seat in the back! before long im lied down knocking out the Z's...... to much beer and not enough sleep! we stop about 300km into the trip at a service station called Jims place. its where Dinky the singing piano playing dingo lives....... i know, i didnt believe it at 1st but it is. dinky was a rescued dingo and when he heard the piano played he would jump up on to the piano, dance around playing keys and howl like a wolf! this guy is an international superstar!!!! Jim gets radio stations, TV from all over the world ringing him up asking for dinky to proform! he has even been on the BBC! i thought i was still drunk but this dingo is a genius! seriously you have to see it to believe it! anyway after that rather strange experience we drive on, next stop the border of the Northern Territory and South Austraila. we drive on stopping every 300km or so. another stop was a thorny devil lizzard in the road, i pick him up and return him to a safe rock! this was right near the dog fence, a 9000km structure from west to east coasts to stop the dingos heading south into farm land! its the longest man made structure in the world! so again we drive on finally getting to your digs for the night, Coober Pedy, an Opal mining town, rich old men trying to crack the opal mining business with a million $ find! everyone in Coober Pedy lives under ground in old opal mines as the temperature gets up to 60 degrees here in the height of summer! we have a cave to sleep in which was cool, literally, 22 degrees to be exact, the coolest id been in days! i also have my 1st incounter with a Huntsman Spider! its a beast, thankfully there not deadly but still it would scare most people on there 1st sight of it!

the next day after a comfy night in my cave we have 10 hours of driving to conker to reach Adelaide, we rarely stop, a couple of refreshment breaks, infact one stop i managed to catch the Hull City Vs Liverpool highlights.....! crazy, especially in the middle of the bush! we finally get to the ocean, my 1st sights of open water in over a week, the fresh sea breeze is a welcomed one for everyone! finally arriving in adelaide. so for the next 2 days i basically spend sleeping! im so tired and so run down! i need a well earned rest. i take a trip down to Glenelg, a small town outside adelaide where they have a huge goldern sandy beach, perfect relaxation! yesterday i met back up with Donna and Louise, 2 girls i met in the Cook Islands and travelled New Zealand with, we are planning a trip to Kangaroo Island and then flying into Melbourne for xmas where we meet back up with Adam, Kirsty and Martine! gonna be nice to see them all again over the christmas period.

so thats my adventures of the last week! pretty busy to say the least. just want to thank people again for the christmas wishes so far and keep up the message posts, there really nice to read, especially this time of the year...... as Mud sang "its gonna be lonely this christmas......"