Today was the last day of the tour . It’s been really good fun and its going to be really weird not having to get up top the call of Nazi Dave and sleep to the sound of other people’s snores and giggles!

D.E. made us stay up last night to wait for the longest train in the world to go by. It never came! Doh! We went to bed at around midnight. We had a lie-in though and got up at 7am.

Today’s’ aim was to be in Adelaide by 6pm, stopping along the way to look at some Aborigine art in a cave.

We managed the canes really well. LOF was feeling groggy so he stayed on the bus. D.E. and I went up the hill though, meeting a few nosey kangas on the way. The art was still very clear – even after 6,000 years. The dreamtime story here included Kangaroos and Wallabies – which there are plenty of.

We all got back on the bus and trundled onwards. That was until Dave pulled up in front of a picturesque post office…

“err guys. I’ve got a problem with the transmission – I can only get 5th. I’m just gonna make a phone call.”

LOL. The gear box was knackered. We ended up being stuck in the small town of Wilmington for 4 ½ hours!

Wilmington, an old telegraph station, has a very small population. It contains a few houses, a pub , a general store, a café and little else. We were fine and the ale flowed freely whilst we waited for a new bus to arrive.

As it was we didn’t get to our hotel (The Mecure) until after 11pm. We said goodbye yo Dave and let him know about the secret book we’d signed, messaged and left in the bus for him and went up to a comfortable double bed with a bathroom that you don’t need to get a torch or shoes to access!

We’re in Adelaide and from the drive in I have to say it looks very nice.

We were allowed a lie in today. We got up at 6am! woo hoo! I went to bed at 11:30 so got 6 hours sleep. mmm sleep.

We went straight to Wilpena park. Those who are walking wanted to go early so that it’s not too hot. Ironically it did seem quite cold last night and, where as I have become used to sleeping on a mattress without need for a sheet, blanket or any other cover, last night I was COLD! A welcome felling! This probably meant that the temperature was about 20 degrees – We didn’t need the air-con either. Unfortunately I’d decided that i wouldn’t need my sleeping bag either and left it on the locked bus. I got cosy under my towel instead.

As i wasn’t walking today i also got dressed in a nice skirt with shoes instead of walking boots. Dave thought this amusing this morning! LOL. I explained that today I was going to be a “lady what lunched” he just looked perplexed and walked on! lol

LOF has decided, rather sensibly i think, that he will pass on the walk. He’s feeling too poorly and is chewing on Strepsil after Strepsil and taking Beechams too. Trust him to get a cold in the desert! Lol. Bless. He’s O.K. Just mute tis all!

He’s going to relax in the visitors centre whilst DE and I go for our fly. (I can see Dunk getting excited lol) He’s got a book and access to egg and bacon muffins so I’m sure he’ll be fine!

The visitor centre and park itself is lovely and full to the brim with Kangaroos and birds. We made friends with some black and white birds who like butternut squash cookies!

The flight was really cool and we had the best views in town. We got to see the pound and the ranges either side. We also saw the campsite where we stayed last night! It was over far too quickly though. We returned to the visitor centre for a cappuccino where I wrote another lot of postcards and chatted for a bit whilst we waited for the others to return.

After they had, and we’d had lunch, we headed out onto Dave’s “mystery tour” across the gorge and into Parachilna (Standard Population 5!! lol)

I later discovered it was a “mystery tour” because he didn’t have a plan! We went along dirt tracks and visited lots of lovely look-out spots. We also went Wallaby spotting on the rocks before we got to tonight’s accommodation. All good fun!

The place we are staying at is made up of loads of porta cabins It does have a pool and a pool table though so it’ll be fine for one night .

Adelaide, civilisation and hotels tomorrow! Woo Hoo! It’ll be very strange without Nazi Dave to spur us on and wake us up. I”ll have to cope with a good nights sleep too… how terrible!

Dave and D E prepare dinner – Emu, Kangaroo and camel. Eughh

The evening in Coober Pedy was great. We went to a pizza place instead of having to cook and wash up and then to a local, underground pub. Some strange characters in there but that’s just part of the wonder of it all! You’d have to be a little bit crazy to live in the desert in 50 degree heat

During our walk back from the pub a huge storm started. It’s just weird. In the desert walking through torrential rain, lightning and thunder! They get 150ml of rain a year here and it evaporates ar 200ml a year! So it is rare and there we were in the middle of it all. Everyone went to bed except LOF, Double E, Davey and me. We stayed up to watch it We dodged the rain under the veranda until 11:30pm. A 5:30am start tomorrow :/

Off to Port Augusta now- another long drive – 6 hours. The we’re camping in a sheep station neat Wilpena pound – It’s a town with a population of 5! We’ll make it a city tonight.

Aussie have a fun sense of humour about these things though!

Today has been mostly driving. That’s from 4:30am until 6:30pm. OMG. I swaer a 3 hour drive to wales seems like a quick trip to the shops now! dave the driver and tour guide extraordinaire deserves a medal of some kind!

We stop along the way to eat and go to the loo. I have now used several “bus toilets” which were very clearly the inspiration for those found at Glastonbury – They are alot cleaner though. Stupidly, I used to check under the toilet seat for spiders at each stop. I’ve stopped doing that now! There are a lot of moths at night and millions of flies during the day but that’s about it.

Lunchtime was great because Double Espresso bought a bag of ice – oh the the simple pleasures! I don’t think you can understand! When you ahve a shower the water in the cold tape is warm, the drinking water is warm (If we only had a tea bag!) Warm water for days and then ICE!! MMMmmmm Ice. Ice is good!

Coober Pedy is a crazy place. Everyone lives under the ground in houses tunnlled into the side of hills. Its summer temperature can be anywhere up to 50 degrees! OMG
The opals they mine are beautiful though. Some are very expensive, I bought myseld a ring with a real opal in it for $40! Bargain.
We’re sleeping in an underground bunker tonight. There are beds! Woo hoo!
The swag was amazing though. I slept like al og. So Cool. The wind was quite strong and there was sand everywhere nut I got a good 4 hours sleep – which is all there is time for before we get up! It’s a good job we can sleep on the coach! ZZzz

It rained though! They hardly ever get rain in the desert and yet I was woken up by a few drops in the middle of the night. It doesn’t last long – just a few seconds and it stops. You’re dry again in a few more as it’s sohot! I just carried on sleeping. LOF reckons there were Dingos howling around us but i don’t remember hearing them! – Too sleepy

Had to get up early today so that we could watch the sun rise over Uluru.
The day has been very long and very insightful. I’ve learnt an awful lot today about the aboriginal culture and have even had a few ideas to add to lessons (always working!lol)

It’s a beautiful national park with a rich culutural history. Australia’s real history. This place is incredibly young. it really only began to take it’s current form 200 years ago. Whilst we were exploring the world on big boats and about to embark on the industrial revolution, Australia was an enormous continent containing just nature and its guardians; the aboriginals

Uluru us actually only spiritually important to one tribe. There are hundreds of aboriginal countries in Australia, all of them with slightly different dream time stories but all of them sharing basic principles passed through the oral tradition. Nothing is written down. It is all “Carried in {their} hearts”

Uluru is steeped in the stories of the dream time of the Arangu. Uluru itself was created by two young boys making sand castles. They made this one so big that they were able to play on it – sliding down the sides of it on their nu,s – that’s where the ridges and lines on the rock came from . The face of Uluru changes as tou walk around all 9kms of it (it takes a good couple of hours and it’s still 40 degrees outside) It has honeycombed bits, large gashes in it’s sides, caves, recess etc. Each one of these has a dream time story attached to it. Stories with giant sankes, gian wild Dingos and Mala men( Half man half wallabee)

I learnt these stories and about some of the other culutural traditions they had. For example, the boys were divided up into 3 sections. (Child, A young man waiting to be mature enough to train how to be a man and a man. Once they are in training they learnt the dreamtime stories and “Mens business” . They boys had to sit in a waiting cave for days/months until it was considered that they were mature enough to accept the responisbiliites of manhood. This started as soon as they began to show interest in women.

I also learnt about the importance of aboriginal art and what the symbols mean. Circles for water holes/meeting places. Footprints to show the paths of the ancestors, half horse shoes for sitting people etc.

We’re staying in a campsite and sleeping bush. It’s so hot in our tent that LOF and I are going to sleep under the stars in a SWAG tonight. This coming from the same girl who, whilst in Perth, wouldn’t even sit on the grass for fear of big spiders! There are big signs warning us not to feed the wild Dingos and not to be fooled by vicious wild dogs!! GULP.

We’ve made some friends too. Catherine from Folkestone, who shall here after be refered to as Double Espresso, (as that’s what she runs on) is great fun and has fitted well with LOFs humour. She owns an Italian Ice-cream shop. Her O H makes fresh Icecream. MMMmmmm fresh Ice-cream!!

Wednesday 3rd Jan.

Oh my god. You step off the plane and it feels like you’ve stepped into a sauna! I was wearing a cardigan too! Omg!

It’s such a contrast out here to perth. It’s a desert with trees, kangaroos and imported camels.

Alice Springs itself is , to be honest, a little dull. We stayed in the ‘Melanka’ cleverly disguised as THE Alice Springs Plaza. Mmm, missing off the Crowne bit really does make all the difference!

At 4.oo am, when we had to be up and ready for our adventure tour, LOf managed to make a new friend. He treated his 6 legged mate to a new house – a glass- and placed him under the sink for the ‘cleaner’ if there is one :/

It was a very early start but it was still roasting hot outside. We met our tour guide Dave and boarded the bus. It’s air conditioned thank fully.

There are a wide range of people in our group all of varying ages and natonaliities. We all have one thing in common though – we all speak Aussie! This is grest as Dave only speaks Aussie. Lol

Some people are only with us for 2 days to do the Uluru bit. Most of us are going all the way to adelaide but –> In the spirit of the AUSSIE dialect I have placed the connective in it’s traditional place – the end. Lol.[

LOF has adapted well into the role of Outback Matt and has been enjoying the challenges set. I , on the other hand, have taken some of the easier walks – it’s 41 degrees out here and a 2.5 hour walk up and around a canyon – King’s Canyon – seemed mad! I went for the 40 minute stoll inside the canyon instead. Even LOF struggled a little and had to share in what he likes to think of as a semi-erotic T-shirt competition with Dave who had to throw water over him so he would cool down enough to finish the walk. He had soggy pants for the rest of the day!

Today has mostly been driving – with that walk in the middle. We’vw covered hundreds of KMs through a red desert with occaisional green trees.

I saw my first kangaroo today leaping away in fright after it tried to cross the road infront of our bus. Don’t worry he/she was absolutly fine

The birds are really awesome too. Loads of gallahs (just like Darl’) – they’re very pretty and pink. They like to make a bit of noise (but).
I’ve seen cockoteils too. Wikd ones, free to sit a top lamp posts and request a bit of your sandwich! There are also zebra finch like the ones grandad has in his front room, Green parrots and a weird looking parrot with a plume of spikey feathers on its head.
I’m camping in the outback tonight. I’ll look out for dingos. You have to hide your shoes because they like to run off with them and chew them up! You’d Think they’d be house trained by now!