Was a bit upset saying bye at the airport today, but onwards to Uluru! Had to take a flight first to Alice Springs and then onto Uluru - progressively smaller aircraft and airports - and progressively more turbulence!!

When not keeping my eyes shut to avoid vomiting and looking at the landscape out of the window I started to realise the vastness of it alla nd you could start to see the red soil and the bush scrub. There was an amazing view of both Uluru and Kaja Tjuta - which save a 100 quid helicopter flight anyway :-) The transfer to the resort is very short - it's all self-contained with 5 different places to stay from campsite to 5*. I was at the Outback Pioneer Hotel and Lodge - had my own room with communal loo, shower and kitchens. There was an outdoor bar and bbq area with live music each night too. Huge spiders in the loos and showers meant no hanging around!!

It was quite weird being in the resort as apart from the organized trips there's not a lot else to see and do so started to get a bit of cabin fever by the end of the 3 days. Did some fantastic trips for sunset and sunrise at Uluru (4:30am pick up for that one argh!). It was really magical looking at all the colours and hearing nothing but dingo's howling . I learned a lot more about aboriginal culture which was quite hard as they are very private people but have a lot of rules about how to behave and what you can and can't see etc. As I'm writing this in my little travelogue book (will type it up later on the free t'internet at my next stop in Cairns!) there are 3 aboriginal toddlers playing in the fountain in the shopping square. Would love to take a photo as they look so cute but you're not allowed to take any photos of an aboriginal person without permission - no paparazzi for them!

Last night I went for dinner in the middle of nowhere in the desert - we watched the sun go down and were up on a sandhill with a bloke playing his didgeridoo (stop it!) - it needs more lung capacity than a free diver fascinating fact fans! The tables were set-up with just an hurricane lamp on them so as the sun went down it was like the stars just sprang out of the sky and an astronomer talked us through what we could see in the Southern Sky like Mars and they had really good telescopes so could look closely. I've really acclimatised to the heat and flies now (although was wearing attractive net headgear for a couple of days!) - it's been an amazing experience and I met a couple of nice women to chat to who were pretty inspiring with everything that had happened int heir lives.

Cairns is the last leg of the journey - new experience tropical rain and mossies! Looking forward very much to diving now. Am determiend to overcome the fear of water I seem to have developed

Sorry no more photos now as the t'internet cafe machines don't let you load anything on - bore you to tears by loading them on Flickr when I get back :-)

Cairns is the last