The red centre

The last activity we did in Cairns was white water rafting on the Tully River. It was absolutely amazing, loved every minute of it, well almost. Apart from the rapid swimming which was actually very scary and for some reason, I still don't understand, I did twice!?!?

We then flew to Alice Springs which is pretty much in the middle of the country and extremely isolated. It's actually a lovely wee town, with a fair amount to see and is the home of the flying doctors. We didn't have a huge amount of time as the next morning we set of on our 3.5 day tour round the red centre. The drive is not all that interesting very flat,red, dusty landscapes with a few trees here and there. The first stop was King's Canyon where we did a long walk through gorgeous rock formations and a natural water hole.

The camping was actually fairly civilised, we had showers and electricity! We camped out under the stars in swags every night. They are basically massive, comfy sleeping bags. The sky was soooooo clear and the moon so bright you could read by it. Our group mainly consisted of Japanese and Koreans who took about a trillion billion (no exageration!) photos every day and they did the peace sign in every single one! They also built amazing camp fires.

The first night we watched the sunset over Ayers rock (now called by its aboriginal name, Uluru)which was pretty impressive. The second day we got up stupidly early to watch the sunrise over Uluru which wasn't all that impressive. We were told it changed colour but all that happened was it got lighter!! Then we walked round the Olgas, a group of head shaped rocks right next to Uluru. Some people find them more impressive than the big rock.
That afternoon was spent chilling by the pool, we had it tough!!

The next day was Uluru day,again we got up stupidly early to watch the sunrise. We then walked all the way round the base of it.It was too windy to climb and the locals prefer you don't climb it anyway. I was a lot more impressed by the rock than I thought I would be. It's got all sorts of bizarre craters and lines all over it. The aborigines have loads of cool dreaming stories about how they got there.

It's a fascinating place, full of mystery and spectacular scenery.

We then had a loooooong drive back to Alice Sprngs and spent a night gawping at the very strange locals and their 'unique' dancing styles.

Another ridiculously early start the next morning to catch the Groove Grape bus to Adelaide. We saw many cultural sights like Dinky the singing dingo and some camels. The lanscape is impressive, it's been in loads of filllms like the red planet and Mad Max. We stopped for the night in a bizarre opal mining town, Cooper Pedy. It is in the middle of nowhere and is pretty much entirely underground. The locals spend their Sundays making bombs for their mining the following week. I was glad to leave the place it gave me the creeps!!

After a 13 hour drive the next day in a bus with no air conditioning we arrived tired and very sweaty in Adelaide.