Hitting the rock

Taking a well deserved break

The Olgas, and some rocks

Sunset at Ayers Rock

We signed up for a three day trip to see Ayers Rock with our hostel, as we didnt fancy doing loads more driving and thought we would get to see more. So we set out on a freezing cold Saturday morning at 6am (ouch) and jumped on our bus with 21 other people and our friendly tour guide Carla. We were promised a free camel ride in the package, and I think I was expecting a nice ride at sunset in front of the rock. No, let's be serious Kat. It was about 7am and we arrived at what looked nothing more than a petrol station, but no...out the back were 2 grumpy looking camels ready to take us for a ride (for $5!!!)! In a circle! And that was it! Oh well, it wasn't for another 3 or 4 hours until we actually reached our destination, a place called King's Canyon. It was pretty impressive yet we were met with a 3 hour walk, starting with a climb called 'Heartattack hill'. What the hell! I won't lie my lack of fitness showed as Nic and I clutched on to every last breath that we could muster, as we could vaguely make out the image of Roz running up the sodding hill. It was pretty good once we were at the top and then I think I may have blacked out, but hours later we arrived at some petrol station in the middle of nowhere where we bought some alcohol (needed to warm my cockles and lessen the pain of camping). It was roughly 6.30pm and this is when Carla decided it was time to drop the bomb that this was our last toilet until an hour and a half after we woke up. Now thats some serious leg crossing. Nevertheless we drove on about 5 minutes more to find a delightful patch of scrub land and this was 'home' for the night. We made a big fire which was great and then Carla made us dinner. Chilli. Good choice you IDIOT! Ha ha! We were all pretty much knackered so we set up our beds...it was a 'swag' (basically a big cover for your sleeping bag with some kind of matressy type thing to sleep on), and the sleeping bag was put inside that. So no tent or anything, the likelihood of being woken up by a dingo licking your face and running off with your trainers was pretty real! So we perfected the art of a 'bush wee' and then headed to our swags.
The next day it was a 6am wake up call and we headed to 'the Olgas' which was a big group of huge rocks that we had another 3hour walk around (it wasn't even 11am by the time we finished!). The Olgas were actually very impressive and probably the best bit of the trip though. We had lunch and that afternoon we headed to Ayers rock. Unfortunately we could not climb the rock as it was too windy (oh and over 30 people had died doing it!) so we had to do the base walk which took around 3 hours which got us up close to the rock and it was pretty great. That evening we got to see the sunset on Ayers rock and had dinner which was great seeing the colours change on the rock. That night it was another well picked piece of scrubland. Yay. Needing a bush wee at 2am was not good.
The next day we were up to see the sunrise at Ayer's rock which was bloody cold but very impressive. We had breakfast there and then set back on the long journey to Alice Springs. Once back we had a well deserved shower and then had some drinks with the group in the bar! Nice to be back in civilisation, toilets, and showers!