Si's Year Out! (Plus Europe! Plus Morocco!): The Outback!!

The next day we started our two day tour of the outback! As we kicked off the first day our guide told us that today we'd be driving over 800km! Our first stop was Kings Canyon, a huge canyon with walls over 100m high, for a 5 hour walk around the canyon. The first part of the walk was up "heart attack hill", named for the steep gradient you have to climb in usually searing heat (it was over 30 degrees in the shade and this was apparently a cool day!!). After conquering that we were rewarded by amazing views right across the canyon.

We visited the "Garden of Eden" for a swim in a very cold pool of rainwater and carried on round to a huge area of weathered sandstone domes that looked like a big city! That evening we camped out by the fire and ate BBQ food.

The next day was a REALLY early start at 4:45am so that we would make the sunrise at Uluru (Ayres Rock). Uluru is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory that is about 350m high and over 9km in cercumference. I wanted to climb the rock but it was too windy so we did the walk around the base. It was amazing to see the rock so close and strange to see something so big in the middle of nowhere with nothing for miles around! We saw the sunrise and marveled at the rock as it seemed to change colour as the sun hit different angles of it. After driving out a bit and taking the classic Uluru picture we headed to Kata Tjuta (The Olgas).

The Olgas are a group of huge sandstone domes very similar to Ayres Rock, that cover an area of about 20km squared. We took a walk through a valley in between two of the domes and got a close-up of the surface of the huge domes, which looked like the surface of the moon - only red!

It was then time to head home, with a quick stop to see Mount Connor, the highest peak in the area. That was our outback trip over, it was a truly amazing journey on which we saw some amazing natural wonders and cover about 3000km in only 7 days!