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Hey everyone!!

I'm back again in Sydney from my amazing trip to the australian Outback!
To give you a little taste, I posted some photos of the last three days, but as you can imagine - i could have posted a 100 more, they're all great!!
I hope you enjoy the dia show. Here just a few infos about the tour:

Andi and me left on friday morning at 5:30 to the airport. After a 2 hour flight we arrived in Melbourne where we instantly met our two tour-colleagues Martin and Christin (also from Villach).
Together we left Melbourn directly to Ayers Rock. We rent a car and checked in immediately in our Hotel (Outback pioneer: http://hotels.australianexplorer.com/directhotel.asp?id=1643 we had the 41$ per night Budget room of course). I really loved the lodge, not only because of the 6 o'clock morning shower at 5 degrees outside... :-)

After checking in and changing clothes we started driving to Kata Tjuta (Olgas) and followed the small 1 hour walk to the centre of the "mountains" and then a 2 hour-trip to the other side.
Unfortunately there was no time left to finish the second walk because we didn't want to miss sunset at Ayers Rock!
On thursday in rained in this area, that's why there were a few clouds on friday as well. That is really rare and for us it was a special occasion to take some nice photos.
After watching the beautiful sunset we went back to our hotel to get some sleep. It was really cold and the next morning we had to get up at 6:30 to experience the sun rise at Ayers Rock as well (07:25 o'clock). At that time (so my impression) the rock was even brighter and looked like a fireball - it was just the best view ever you can have at such an early time!!

After that we started to climb the rock (I know you shouldn't do it and respect aboriginal culture, but to be honest: we are just 4 out af a million of people who climb the rock every year. and: when you're standing at the top of this incredible huge rock, you realize why it is so special and you can imagine why it is holy to the indigenous people. I really hope that they will close Ayers Rock in the future completely and give it back to its former owners, but as long as it is open I would recommend this climb to everyone!!).
The view from the top of the rock is incredible and I think there is no single place in the world where you can feel so extremely free like up there.....




At noon we took the car to drive 3,5 hours to Kings Canyon (and the same back home in the evening) which was ABSOLUTELY WORTH EVERY SINGLE KILOMETRE!!! (all in all we managed to drive almost 900 km in just two full days).
The whole Canyon is full of pancake-like red rocks and hills (a little bit like in New Zealand, but without blowholes - of course it is in the desert - and red like the rest of the australian Outback). We did a three hour walk there and we all four just loved it!! Have a look at the pictures then you'll know what I mean.
The way back home was a little bit dangerous with cangaroos hopping around the street, cows standing around etc... during the day we also saw a dingo, two camels, poisonous snakes etc.. - great :-)

Back home we opened a bottle of Wine (thanks Andy that was a great idea) and memorized the whole day. Then we had to go to bed early because the next sunrise was coming faster and faster....

The last day (sunday) was quite short for us, because our flight back home was around mid-day. so we were a little bit in a hurry to finish the whole track around Ayers Rock, but then, for the cultural centre we had 20 more minutes :-) That was not enough for sure, but we got a small overview of the creation of the world and human beings (from aboriginal view) and some information about their culture and life today and in the past.

Unfortunately we had to leave 12:00 to give back the car and to catch our flight - I could have stayed at this wonderful place for some more days!

At this time I want to say thank you to Martin, Christin and Andreas for travelling with me - I had a great time with you and I would love to repeat a journey like that (or a completely different one - no matter) with all of you!! Thank you!!

Now I'm back in my room in Sydney and a new week at uni will start very soon. After one week we already have a lot of work, but I really like this university and my subjects!

Hope you didn't fell asleep while reading this long story :-)
See/ hear/ write you soon!!

All the best and a nice summer in Europe from Stephanie DOWN UNDER