Alice Springs & The Red Centre, NT, Australia

Road trip over, and we made it to Alice Springs the largest town in the Northern Territory with a population of 28,000 people. A modern town, which has boomed in recent years due to tourism and the development of the Stuart Highway and The Ghan Railway line.

A compact town with just a few main streets of small shopping malls, Aboriginal art galleries and a few cafes & bars. Due to its size it did not take very long for Rebecca and I to explore (in fact about an hour). With not much to due we decided to treat the next few days as relaxing time ahead of our 3 day tour to The Red Centre which includes Kings Canyon, the Olgas and the big rock itself Uluru (Ayers Rock).

The first day of our tour started at 6am and 5 hour drive along the highway (again) until we reached the Watarrka National Park. We arrived here at midday and proceeded to do a 6km walk in 44C heat along the rim of the canyon. Although hot, Kings Canyon was an amazing sight with 100 metre high walls, and a huge sandstone plateau. A short but steep 20 minute incline to us to the top of the canyon where we could enjoy views of sheer cliff faces of red, white and black stone. After the 3 hour walk which included a pleasant dip in a rock pool, we drove to our camp in "the bush" and prepared for a night in our swags, sleeping under the stars (watch out for the creepy crawlies).

The next morning was another early start, before the break of dawn - the reason why? Another 7+km walk but this time at the Olgas (Kata Tjuta). It's a good idea to complete this walk before the heat of the day so we were up, dressed, had breakfast and were on our walk around 8am. The Olgas are a group of dome shaped rocks (36 of them) which together form little vallies and gorges. The highest rock (Mt Olga) reaches 546 metres high which is a staggering 200 metres higher than Uluru.

There are many Aboriginal stories that surround the Olgas all of which are sworn to secrecy to the Anangu men. For us therefore, we were only able to marvel at the sheer intensity of the size, shape and colour of these rocks and understand how they got there in the first place. After visiting the Olgas, the afternoon was left for a rest by a swimming pool, lunch and the a short circuit around Uluru before making our way to a viewing spot for sunset.

Evening was drawing in, so we made sure to be the first at the viewing spot, to make sure we get a good view of the sun setting over Uluru a spectacular sight for anyone. Becs and I found I place on a wall, cracked open 2 ice cold beers and just watched the sunset move down and the colours of the rock change from brown to red and then finally grey. For us this was the highlight of the trip - how many times had you seen Uluru on postcards, tv documentaries etc... and for us it was a realisation of how lucky we were to be in the middle of Australia witnessing such a sight.

We had dinner at the rock (the best Thai curry I've ever tasted, thanks to our tour guide Pankie), and then made it back for our 2 night in the bush, sleeping in swags. This night it wasn't so much star gazing but laying in the open bush with lightening flashing in the sky above us!

ANOTHER early morning, this time for the Uluru sunrise. It was quite overcast however, we still managed to see the sky turn purple and pink around the rock. A 9km base walk around Uluru completed our 3 day tour (the climb was closed due to high winds at the summit), and we left the tour bus who were heading back to Alice Springs for an extra night in Uluru, this time at a 4* hotel thanks to Rebecca's contacts.

Here, we met up with our Alice Springs buddies, Gavin and Paul where we chilled our by the pool before heading back to the rock in time for sunset, this time we stepped up a class with champagne and snacks! Not a bad for a backpacker!

Great memories for the entire 2 weeks in the Northern Territory, I would recommend it to anyone who comes to Australia but make sure you experience the real outback as opposed to travelling with tours all the time. If you can, independent travel is much more fun and adventurous.

Thanks to Becs to... you're a wicked travelling buddy, you can travel with me anytime...! Bring on WA in 2009.