January 23rd

We've been up at 4am for the last 4 days in a row & feeling exhausted now!!

On Wednesday we travelled to Ayers Rock on a 6am flight - went to see the Olgas (another rock close to Ayers Rock), walked through a gorge (where the park ranger recored a temperature of 51 degrees C!) and then went on to see the amazing sunset over Ayers Rock. Well....I watched the sunset while Dave took about 600 photos!!

On Thursday, we got up early to see the sunrise over Ayers Rock (really stunning), did a cultural walk around the base of Ayers Rock (we weren't allowed to climb it as the temperatures were too hot!) and then travelled on a 4 hour bus trip to Kings Canyon.

On Friday, we got up at about 4:30 (lie in) to do a 3.5 hour sunrise hike around the rim of Kings Canyon. Actually it took us about 4 hours because we were waiting for Dave to take photos :) It was absolutely spectacular there - an amazing canyon in the middle of the desert with nothing else around for miles and miles. Then we took another 4 or 5 hour bus trip on to Alice Springs.

On Saturday, we got up before 4am to do a sunrise hot air balloon trip in the outback! I've always wanted to do a hot air balloon trip and it was incredible!! We saw the sunrise over the mountains, saw lots of kangaroos hopping around through the trees, and even had a champagne breakfast when we landed. Then flew on to Melbourne for the next stage of our journey.