Its miles away from anything, but those miles are worth travelling.  On Sunday the Feb 4th 2007 I finally made it out of my Sydney base where i’d been for over two months, even if it was only for a sort time. I caught my morning flight with Emirates to Ayers Rock where I joined a 3 day tour of the red centre. The tour was amazing, just the right amount of time and I got to see everything I wanted to see.

Day 1

On the first day we walked the valley of the winds and watched the sunset of Uluru with champagne in hand (if only I liked the stuff). We visited the aboriginal culture centre and learnt stories, hunting methods, food sources and loads of other cool stuff. That night we slept out under the stars in ‘swags’. Cool experience, the moon acted liked a floodlight it was that bright and if you listened hard you could hear the dingo’s in the surrounding areas.

Day 2

We were up at 4.25 the next day so we could see the sunrise over Uluru which was just as spectacular as sunset. The locals don’t like you climbing the rock as it’s sacred to their way of life and beliefs. I was in two minds as it would be quite cool to do it but strong winds meant the climb was shut, made the decision easy, we did the 9km base walk instead. Even at stupid o’clock in the morning it hit near 40, incredibly hot, and the flies were unbearable. About as annoying as an Uxbridge clipboard worker, they would not b***** off. My hands were like constant wipers, clearing the little scallywags from eyes, nose, mouth, ears …. Why do they want to go in your ears?? So so annoying, should have taken a net.

That afternoon we drove to king’s canyon and had the luxury of an hour in a swimming pool, where if you went underwater the flies couldn’t get to you. Around the camp fire that night our guide Magic (cool name eh!) played the dige for us and told us stories of tours gone wrong, including the tour where some English lass had a vision and told Magic she would not see out the night and that if any of the other travelers got on the bus the next day they’d all die … sounds like she’d be great fun at a party!

Day 3

On our last day we were up again early doors after another night of swaging. We spent to morning doing a 6km canyon trek around king’s canyon, visiting the Garden of Eden on route, a really nice trek. Took about 3 hours which is why we needed to start it so early.

The rest of the day was spent driving back to Alice Springs where we all stayed the night before catching our various flights. We did all meet up for dinner at a local bar where we got an awesome buffet. I ate crocodile in raspberry source, sweet eh! Tastes like chicken actually. Had a couple of drinks and played pool with the British contingent who were all really sound.

Useless fact alert: Kangaroo in aboriginal actually means ‘I don’t understand’ … you’ll thank me one day when that comes up in a pub quiz and you win a packet of flaming hot monster munch.