Perth to Alice Springs, in a big 4WD van

This is the bit of the travelling I'd been waiting for. Three days in the desert, camping under the stars. The Olgas, Uluru, King's Canyon, and lots of other stuff. In a lot of ways it lived up to the buildup I'd given it, but in some, it was a little different. Firstly, the three days in the desert consisted of stops at fuel stations, and about 8-12 hours' driving a day, and secondly, the first night I had wildly underestimated how much I needed to wear to keep warm! All in all though, I'm still very glad to have done it, and grateful to Terry our tour guide and driver (and cook, and entertainment, and astronomer and general resource - a really incredible guy) and to the other folks on the tour for making it so much fun.

12th September - I was picked up from the hostel ready to hit the road. The driver, Terry mentioned we were being joined by Yoko Ono, and we joked about whether it would be the proper one. We picked up everyone else from around town and headed out of Perth. At about noon we stopped for lunch - sandwiches and pasta salad, very tasty, and a few people made introductions. Then we headed out to Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, which is goldmining country. This would be our last chance to get cheap booze for about a week, the driver said. Then we headed out to our campsite - a flat area of dust just off the highway - and set up a fire and camp for the night.

13th September - We got up at sunrise, something we were going to have to get used to. I hovered by the fire, desperately trying to get back some lost heat from the cold, windy night. We piled onto the bus and headed to the abandoned gold mining town at Gwalia, and spent 15 minutes looking at the rusted shacks with tables and chairs, beds and even books still in there from 1967 when the town was closed down overnight. The rest of the day was spent driving, but we did see kangaroos, eagles, goats and even emus from the truck. We also saw a thorny devil, a spiny lizard, and so Terry stopped and showed it to us close up. It even ended up on Jurgen and Jo's heads! Terry also showed us a few waterholes on the way. The aborigines used to fill them with gravel to stop anything falling in and polluting the water. One we saw hadn't been maintained, and was full of emu, so probably wasn't good to drink. When we got to the camp, Ellie said she was worried about scorpions, but Terry said she shouldn't worry about them, the snakes are much worse! After that, she was going to sleep on the bus, but she braved it, even after spotting a snake shaped branch on the floor.

14th September - Lots of camels on the roadside all day today, and all dirt roads, much like yesterday, and much like the following day, it would transpire. We stopped at Warburton, one of the most remote petrol stations in the world! It's odd to drive 300km without seeing anything, and then arrive at a roadhouse by an aboriginal town you aren't allowed to enter, and then drive another 300km to the next one. At the next one though, there was a weather station, and we were there just in time for the weather balloon launch. If the meteorologist bears a striking resemblance to Ellie, that's a coincidence, members of the public aren't allowed to launch weather balloons.

Earlier in the day I'd asked Terry how often he got flat tyres. He said "Hardly ever, but now you've tempted fate, so if we get one, it's your fault!". Guess what?! We got one... Terry fixed it when we got to our camp, just over the Northern Territory border. And we found a frisbee and threw that about a bit. And I sang Great Balls of Creep to everyone, round the fire.

15th September - At about 10am, a few hours on the road, we sighted the Olgas on the horizon. I realised I didn't know what to expect from them, but they were every bit as impressive as Uluru. On the walk into the valley we met some very jubilant greek guys from Melbourne. They caught us up near the car park and danced with Megan and Danie, which we all joked about all afternoon! A few minutes later, Uluru came into view, and we drove past to Yalura, the Ayers Rock resort. After lunch we headed to the rock and saw a waterhole at the foot of it, and some cave paintings. The information we were given, and Terry's talks about the sites at the foot of the rock, drove home the cultural significance of Uluru to the ancestral owners. Later we watched the sun set on the rock, and behind the Olgas, and then headed home for dinner on the campsite.

16th September - Yesterday afternoon the climb had been closed so we headed back for another go. First we watched sunrise on the rock, which meant getting up at 4.45am. So much for being on holiday! The climb was closed again though, so we did the base walk instead. In a way it was a relief not to have to decide whether to go up or not, and the base walk was fascinating - more dreamtime stories about the patterns in the rock and what they meant, and incredible scenery rising from the flat of the desert. A talk we heard said "You could see a bull ant at 10km out there, as long as it wasn't lying down" and it's nigh on true.

In the afternoon we headed round to King's Canyon. Although we were getting rock fatigue, it was another spectacular trip. The climb to the top of the rim walk nearly killed me though! We also found the water hole in the back of the canyon, by the Garden of Eden, and I sat with my feet dipped in the cool water for a few minutes before we started the walk back to the bus. Alas, two of us got a little lost on the way - Megan and Ellie took a wrong turn and ended up back by the water hole. They radioed the rangers who came out to find them, following Terry who had left ten minutes before, and half an hour later we heard they were on their way back. By the time they got back to the bus, exhausted but safe, it was dark, and we spotted a satellite going overhead just before they returned.

17th September - Today there were lots of morning activities available - camel rides, helicopter rides, Harley rides. I chose the cheapest one, a lie-in! On the way we found some meteorite craters - not that impressive, as the sharp edges had been worn down over the years, but still colossal for the size of the rocks. At the roadhouse just outside Alice we tried to see Dinky the singing dingo, but he was on tour to Alice, so we soon moved on. Arriving into Alice was great - civilisation at last! I wandered to the station and caught the 'Ghan leaving for Darwin, so I watched it go. I'll be on the train myself on Thursday. Then we all met up for a meal in town, a goodbye for the tour people. The bar was great fun - peanut shells on the floor, and snakes in a tank in the bar. Later the owner brought the snake out, and passed it round. Even Ellie, whose fear of snakes was pretty intense, managed to stroke it at one point. It was kind of hard saying goodbye to everyone, but I was glad to be sleeping in a proper bed again!