Thursday 17th June - Alice Springs - Ayer's Rock
First people on the bus and then rather than pick-up everyone else and go we had to 'checkin' - this time wasting allowed for paying park fees and for paying for sleeping bags (yes they charge for hiring them seperately!) . So even though we got picked up at 5.10am we didn't actually leave Alice until 6.30am! We were now 'in a hurry' - this was to prove to be the story of our trip - always rushed. We got to King's Canyon after about 5 hours of driving and did a 2.5 hour hike around the Canyon - fantastic scenery and great pictures! We pulled up at a campsite to make ourselves a spicy tuna salad and wash-up - this trip was our first proper 'backpacker' trip after all! Anna, our guide, went to refill the bus and on the way back the engine overheated! So, there we were in the outback with a clapped-out bus. Anna went and got a couple of local mechanics to sort it out and 1.5 hours later we were off again - finally getting to Ulura camp-site about 3 hours after sunset. On the way we grabbed some beer and wine and tucked into that whilst making our sausages and steaks dinner (and building a campfire). It was very cold when we got there and by the time we put our heads down to sleep it was even worse! Everyone slept with a full set of clothes on and the lucky ones had their own woolly hats!

Friday 18th June - Ayer's Rock (Uluru) - Alice Springs
Awoke to find our swags (a matress with a canvas cover which contains the sleeping bag) covered in frost! Shivered our way through breakfast and jumped on the bus to see sunrise at Ayer's Rock . It truly is impressive as you get close to it though we weren't quite sure what the fuss was about sunrise - perhaps seeing so many sunrises and sunsets in Western Australia has made us ambivalent ?! We had a 2 hour walk around the rock seeing all of the distinctive markings and Aboriginal rock art - though there was an option to climb it. Amazingly, despite being told it's dangerous and more importantly, it's disrespectful to the local Aborigine people to climb it many did, including the Japanese girl on our bus who turned up late last night as she missed the bus early in the morning. We headed on to see the 'Olgas' (Kata Tjuta) mountain range, about 35km further on from Ayer's Rock, which are much higher than Uluru and with amazing steep gorges between the mountainous plateaus. Back to our camp of last night for lunch before heading back to Alice - or that's what we thought! We had another delay of 1.5 hours whilst Anna got her hands dirty trying to sort out yet another engine problem - we were not impressed as everyone just wanted to get home by this stage. Eventually we switched buses completely and finally made it back to Alice at 8.30pm. We felt for the money we paid that the whole trip was slightly shambolic and amateur-like but the company like to call all of this 'fun' and 'part of the adventure'. Expecting your guide to double up as a mechanic and take the blame (and hit their wages) for any problems mechanically says it all really! We must be getting old!
At least when we got back to our apartment it was very nicely kitted out and warm,cosy and comfortable - it beat sleeping under the stars with frost for company!