Got back from our trip to the Outback last night. It was amazing! I'll try to relay the trip, but truly, unless you make it yourself, you won't completely understand it.

Matt rented a car (a Hyundai SUV that wasn't 4WD) and we went to get some supplies and then headed off just before 10am. I was already happier than I would have been taking the tour as I would have had to wake up at 4:30 to do it. We got directions from someone at the grocery store and headed out. Just a few km outside of Alice Springs, the road abruptly came to an end, turning into a long unsealed roadway. We were like, "Holy crap! Are we going to have to drive for 5 hours on a gravel road?" Luckily, a taxi driver was napping out there and gave us more directions - we had missed a turn off to get to the proper highway.

We were less than 20 minutes south of the "city" (Alice Springs hardly could be called one) when we were totally and completely in the Outback. It was the most amazing thing. First off, the earth is the most amazing red clay. It was like nothing I'd ever seen. And the bush went on as far as the eye could see with plants so alien to the westernized world that they could only possibly be called prehistoric. Aside from the two lane tarmac running through, it was what the world must have looked like before civilization. There were no power lines, no lights, nothing to let you know modern man had been there, other than that road. Nothing in either direction to the horizon - no homes, gas stations, roadside diners - nothing but the occasional wild animal. We saw cows, horses (a small herd ran across the road in front of us), camels, goannas - all wild. There were constantly signs to watch for kangaroos, but aside from the numerous carcasses we saw on the side of the road, we never saw one.

The gas stations were few and far between. You pretty much had to stop at each one to top off or you wouldn't make it, as it might be 150km between them. The gas was wicked expensive. I think we calculated it out to being between $6-7 a gallon. Finally, after several hours of driving, and after just having seen a sign telling us Uluru was 120km away, we saw it on the horizon - this enormous stone stretched out across the earth. It was completely amazing. We couldn't believe it was still 120km away and so visible from where we were. After stopping to take a few photos, we motored on only to discover we seemed to be passing it, with no sign of where to turn off to get there. A filling station was coming up so we stopped to get gas (or "petrol" as everyone says here) and ask directions. While Matt was gassing up, I asked the woman who worked there, "Are we still heading to Ayers Rock?" She said we were. I followed up with, "Even though we seem to have passed it?" She looked confused. "You haven't passed it," she said. I thought she must not have understood me. "But it's right there," I said, pointing to the far off rock. She looked and then laughed. "That's Mt Connell," she said. I felt like a complete idiot tourist. I think Matt was just glad he wasn't the one who asked.

We made it to Ayers Rock Resort around 3pm. Don't let the word "resort" fool you. The place is enormous and pretty much the only place to stay out in the area. It's sectioned off into different kinds of accommodation which includes camping out, hostel dorm rooms, all the way up to a five star hotel. We got the cheapest thing we could get without having to share a dorm room with a bunch of others. It was a 2 bedroom cabin in the campground that had a small working kitchen and a heater, but no bathroom or shower. We would have to share the communal restrooms for one night. Because of the monopoly on housing in the area, we paid $150 for the night for that tiny cabin. I couldn't believe it. And the two bedrooms ended up being a full size bed in one room, and 4 bunks in the other. I told Matt I really didn't care. I just wanted to get a better nights sleep than I'd had the night before since my room was exactly two doors down from the hostel bar. I took the bunk beds, something I hadn't slept on since college.

We dumped our stuff and headed out to Uluru. It took about 20 minutes to make the drive out there, and as soon as we saw it, we couldn't believe we had ever mistaken Mt Connell for it. The shape and color were so very different. I felt like taking a photo every other minute. I could show you 100 photos of it, but without seeing it for yourself, you will never understand the sheer magnitude of the rock. It's an earthy red and solid stone. With the bright blue cloudless sky in the background, it's simply amazing. It's the most incredible thing. It almost looks man made because you can't imagine how nature could have possibly produced it. It feels like solid cement and has interesting holes and caves about it, and some areas where it looks like an ocean wave has carved its way into the side of the rock.

Matt had wanted to climb the rock. I wasn't that interested in it - the Aboriginal people really don't want you climbing their sacred land. I might have gone if he had gone - the signs warned you not to climb alone and I didn't want anything bad to happen to him. What both of us didn't realize is that the climb is pretty much up the steep face of the rock. It looks incredibly dangerous and we couldn't believe people had their kids up there. Matt decided to pass, and the two of us headed off to make the 3 hour hike around the base of the rock.

The first thing I noticed when we started out was the flies. They're everywhere and insect repellent doesn't seem to help much. They get all over you. I tried not to think about the ones on me though I noticed about 50 of them on Matt's back. Before long, we found ourselves in the shadow of the rock where it turned quite cold. To be honest, it wasn't that warm to begin with - maybe 68 degrees - so the dark side was chilly. We were about 2 hours in when we realized the sun would set in an hour and we were going to be on the wrong side of it. We quickened our pace and kept walking, but it seemed like no matter how far we went, the sunlight remained elusive. We didn't realize at the time that when the sun is headed down, the dark side of the rock is about twice the length of the sun side. We made it around a corner to barely see the sun going down. We had missed what was rumoured to be a spectacular sight. We promised ourselves we would be there for sunrise the next morning.

We went back to our cabin, showered, and headed off in search of food. The cheap BBQ restaurant ended up being rather horrid and not so inexpensive. We remembered the kitchen in the cabin and went to the on site grocery store to buy something to cook. Matt tried to get me out for a drink and come pool later that night, but after he completely kicked my ass at pool (I didn't get a single ball in - the balls are very different here, smaller and lighter), I realized how incredibly tired I was, and went back to the cabin to turn in.

We awoke early the next morning, packed everything into the car, and headed off to see the sunrise. When we got to the sunrise viewing area and got out of the car, it was freezing cold and there were like 100 of us out there, all looking up at this rock, waiting for it to amaze us. I'd heard that during sunset and sunrise, Uluru can change colors and just look incredibly. It was sort of cool watching the sun come up over it, but it was pretty disappointing. No light show, nothing overly interesting, and before we knew it, it was over.

We had limited time. The days here aren't terribly long right now, and you can't drive at night in a rental car. Matt was additionally worried about hitting a kangaroo on the freeway since we had seen so many dead ones. I didn't blame him. Aside from the fact that it would trash the car, we'd both feel horrible about hurting an animal. We had already hit several birds that didn't have the good sense to fly anywhere other than right in front of cars on that single stretch of road.

We rushed over to the Olgas, another rock formation 40km away. I had heard that they weren't that impressive after seeing Uluru. We were pretty much just going to say we had been there. Since we were so close, it seemed foolish not to go. When we arrived though, we were quite impressed. They were just as spectacular as Uluru but with much more vegetation. We had heard the Valley of the Winds was amazing, so we started to hike in. Unfortunately, it was a 3 hour hike, and we just didn't have the time. We hiked 1km in to the first view point and the valley that opened up below looked like something out of Jurassic Park - just beautiful and amazing. We were really bummed that we couldn't make the whole hike, but it would have meant staying an extra day. That was probably our single regret of the trip. Saddened, we turned back and headed back to the car where we rushed off to Kings Canyon.

I can't remember how far the Canyon was away, but it took us several hours to get there. Three, I think. Again, if we wanted to finish our trip during daylight, we didn't have time to do the entire 3-4 hour Rim Walk around the edge of the entire canyon. We first opted to go down a small 30 minute hike which took us into the floor of the canyon, a long dead riverbed filled with more trees and scrub like nothing we had seen outside of the Outback. It didn't take long, and we went back to climb up the canyon to the rim so we could at least get a look from up there, even though we wouldn't be able to finish the walk. The climb up the cliff face was pretty strenuous. It reminded me of climbing the Great Wall - lots of big, uneven steps. It seemed like we would never make it to the top (at least without passing out), but we finally did. The view was just incredible. Stone rock walls sheered off to the river of trees below. We were really glad we'd had the time to make that climb. Even though we didn't get to make the walk all the way around the rim, I think we saw what we had come for. I imagine the rest of the walk would have been amazing, too, but pretty much more of the same. Some photos, and we were off.

Matt was tired of driving (understandably so). Since the car was rented in his name, he was technically the only one allowed to drive it, but he asked me to give him a break. I was excited to give left side driving a go, and thought driving on these big straight roads with no traffic would be the perfect way to usher myself into it. First off, it just feels wrong. Wrong side of the car, wrong side of the road. Every time I went to turn the blinker on, I turned the windshield wipers on instead because everything is on the wrong side. I felt like I couldn't tell if the left side of the car was too close to the edge of the road or not because there was no shoulder. I admit, I did sort of hit the edge of the road and scare Matt about 3 times, but I think I did OK. Since there was almost no cars at all (you could go 50 miles or more without seeing a single other person), I was able to sort of straddle the center line a bit which made me feel safer.

We passed one gas station maybe 30 minutes out from Kings Canyon. We still had a little over half a tank of gas and figured we would have no problem at all making it to Erldunda. But maybe 100km later, we realized we had somehow gotten to Empty. We figured the tank must be horribly uneven so that 1/2 full wasn't the same amount of gas remaining as we had already used. We slowed down, tossed water out, turned off the AC, and hoped we could make it close enough to a station to get a lift there. We thought there might be a station at the junction with the freeway back to Alice Springs but there wasn't. A sign said the next services were 52 km away! It was the longest half hour ever. We dipped below E and kept hoping. Somehow, amazingly, we actually made it to the station and gassed up.

Maybe 30km down the road, we were flagged down by an Aboriginal couple on the side of the road. Their tire had blown out and their spare had no air in it. They wanted to know if we had a pump, which we didn't. Matt told them he was more than happy to take them back to the filling station so they could air it up, but they told him not to worry - they would wait it out. We thought it was pretty interesting, the patience they had. No white person would ever have passed up the free ride back, since we all seem perpetually on some sort of schedule.

We had run out of time, and the sun set when we were maybe an hour south of Alice Springs. Matt, terrified of hitting anything, slowed way down. We weren't in any hurry and it was better to be careful than to have anything happen. We had just let another truck pass us when we saw them swerve sharply up ahead, and then saw what I was sure was a kangaroo hopping off into the bush. Better them than us, we figured. At the end of the trip, Matt reckoned we had driven something like 1100km over two days. A long, long drive, but the company and conversation was good and it was an experience neither of us will have again.

I said goodbye to Matt this morning. He was driving up to Darwin which would take him a few days. I was envious - I have another 24 hour train ride to look forward to, and this time I won't have Matt to entertain me. He was a really good guy and I couldn't have possibly hoped to find a better traveling companion. I'm in Alice Springs for 2 more nights and will go out mountain biking (or bush biking, I guess) and figure out what else to do before I get back on the train.