Uluru-Kata Tjutu NP, Kings Canyon NP and East MacDonnells NP

I loved Uluru and Kata Tjutu - I could have spent a week there. It totally exceeded my expectations.

Here's Nic eating his tea with Uluru in the background. When we arrived it was very overcast and on the second day it rained all day. In the desert - quite a shock. People kept telling us how lucky we were to be there when it was raining!!!

For 3 days we set our alarm for 6.30am so we could watch the sunrise. One the first 2 mornings it was raining but on the 3rd day the sun finally came out. Here is Kata Tjutu (The Olgas). They are millions of years old and massive.

Here's Uluru at sunset.

Here's Uluru at sunrise.

We left Uluru and drove to Kings Canyon. On the 2nd day we did the spectacular rim walk. You could stand on the edge and look 100m down.

Here's some ancient rock art on Uluru.

Here's some total idiots climbing Uluru with plaques for some of the stupids who've died climbing it. They ask you not to climb it for 3 reasons. 1- it's dangerous 2- it's disrespectful and 3- people wee and pooh on it and leave miscellaneous items e.g. batteries and nappies. Now about 20% of visitors still climb it - shocking isn't it?

Here is the Garden of Eden at Kings Canyon - very peaceful. We stopped here for a snack and were joined by some very friendly Spinifex Pigeons.

They have thousands of feral camels in Australia. These are some that we saw on road.

Here's Nic at Kings Canyon.

Here's a frilled lizard sunning himself on the road. I picked the little spiky beggar up by it's tail and moved it to a safer place!

On our way back to Alice Springs we had 2 nights at Trephina Gorge in the East MacDonnells NP. This was our picnic spot.

Henley-on-Todd Regatta - Alice Springs

Here are a few piccies to give you a taste of the madness of this annual event.

The finale was 3 boats, vikings, pirates and the navy, all fighting it out with water hoses and flour bags - it was quite a spectacle! and very funny. They even had a streaker.

Driving to the Red Centre

We've had an interesting couple of weeks and we've driven 1000's of kms through the outback to get to Alice Springs. We went so quickly (as there was practically nothing on the way) that we ended up meeting up with my parents again for a night in Alice Springs - a lovely bonus!

Below is an outback sunset - spectacular.

Here's Nic playing on the Devil's Marbles, hundreds of massive boulders in the middle of nowhere.

We had a 4-day trip in the West MacDonnells NP and saw wild budgies - how wonderful.

Here are the Ochre Pits. The Aboriginal people have used ochre for decoration and medicine for 30,000 years - amazing.

We went on a 4 hour epic walk at Ormiston Gorge - we had to wade through ice cold water which went up to my chest (Nic's waist!) to get across the creek and then do a bit of rather exciting and unexpected rock climbing! They've had so much rain here this year that everything is green and the creeks have water in them. We are seeing the red centre at it's most beautiful we think. They're are spring flowers everywhere!

We are at the Henley-on -Todd Regatta today in Alice Springs. This is a race with boats on a dry river bed - photos will be on the next edition! Tomorrow we head south to Uluru and Kings Canyon. Really excited about seeing Uluru at sunrise and sunset.

Cairns to Cape Tribulation and then in land to Normanton

On our travels in Northern Queensland along the stunning coast we came across a man selling hang gliding trips. His dog also has done 20 trips and you can check them out on youtube.

We stayed for a couple of nights in Wonga and saw this huge female golden orb spider.

This is Edwina a lovely spectacled fruit bat who lives in Bat Hut at Cape Tribulation. She was hanging upside down but we've turned the picture around so you can see her lovely face!

This is Noah's beach - beautiful but dangerous as salties (crocs) can be in the water.

A crazy tree in the amazing rainforest.

We went on a trip on the Daintree river and saw loads of great stuff including this tiny croc that is a year old.

We also saw Beatrice.

After leaving the coast we made our way into the hot dusty outback and stopped in Undura Volcanic National Park to do a tour of the lava tubes. They were 160km long - the longest in the world.

This is Nic with Krys, a replica of the biggest croc ever seen. He was almost 9 metres long and was killed by a female crocodile hunter in the 1950's. He now 'lives' in Normanton.

We are on our way to Alice Springs and we should be there in about a week. There is practically nothing on the way so the then next blog should be short!!!

Live aboard diving for 3 days on the Great Barrier Reef

We had an amazing time on the Great Barrier Reef and we did 10 dives and got our Advanced Diving Certificate. We dived to 30metres and also managed to successfully swim around in a square to pass our navigation dive.

Here's a tiny proportion of the cool stuff that we saw.

Here's Nic fondling a sea cucumber.

Me looking very happy under water.

Nic's cool shark piccie.

Can you see Nemo?

Us with Michael and Richard. Richard (in the green) works for BAE and has escaped for 9 months to travel.

Saying goodbye to our dive boat. Very sad.

Lucinda/Mission Beach/Cairns/Karunda

Above is a view from the skyrail that we got from Cairns to Karunda, a village in the mountains.

We visited the fantastic Australian Butterfly Sanctuary where the friendly butterflies land on you. This is the stunning Ulysses Butterfly.

We also visited Bird World and below are photos of a metallic starling before and after fluffing himself up.

Here's Nic being attacked by a parrot that took a liking to the toggle on his hat.

Here's us with Hogan at the Koala Gardens in Karunda. He smelt of eucalyptus. Below is me with some sort of snake.

We went on the scenic railway to get back to Cairns. Some bloke decided to ruin our photo!

We had a fantastic day.

On the way to Cairns from Townsville we visited Mission Beach and hoped we would see a Cassowary bird.

And we did - hurray! They are huge - the size of an emu.

Here is some of the stunning rainforest seen around this area.

Whilst out walking we saw this sleepy scrub or amethystine Python.

This is a 6km long jetty in Lucinda used for shipping sugar cane - there are miles and miles of sugar cane plantations all along the coast.