Today we went to the canyon to do the walk up and around the rim. The walk was hard at the start because you had to climb/walk to the top. It was very high. After that bit it wasn’t too bad. At about half way there was a water hole that you could swim in. I tried to have a swim but It was too cold and slippery for me. The whole walk took us about 3 1/2 hours to do.

We left Uluru today and went to Kings Canyon. once we were set up at Kings Canyon we went for a short walk into Kings Canyon. There was a look out at the end of the walk. It was really cool to look down at all the trees and things. On the way back from the look out there was a snake on the path! We think it was a python of some sort. It was so long! It didn’t try to get us. After dinner we went to watch ‘the Roadies’ they were an Australian musical comedy using well known traditional songs.

Today we walked around the Olgas it was down hill for the first little bit. It was Very rocky you had to be vary careful where you step. There was a very steep, big rock that you had to climb/walk up. Then there was another hill to go up. When you get to the top there is another longer walk that you can go on but we didn’t go on that one. It looked really steep from where we were but when you go a bit to the edge it wasn’t as bad but it was still very steep. We then went back. It was a bit hard to go down the big steep rock. I went down it twice. The Olgas are known as Kata Tjuta and are made up of sandstone conglomerate rocks unlike uluru being a monolith – one rock. We then went to the first ever camel races in Yulara. We missed the first race. It had some games like egg and spoon race and throw the boot. We didn’t see the last few races. Mum Tara and I went on a helicopter ride at the races as well. Then we came back Tara, Dad and I went to the volley ball court. We played this throw to throw game because the soccer ball we were using was to hard to play volley ball. Then we had a play on the play ground and played some more catch game. We then went back to have dinner.
Tess

Around midday we walked around Uluru! It’s big! In some places you can’t take photos because it is sacred land to the aboriginals and it is disrespectful. The name of the traditional owners of Uluru is Anangu. When it’s not windy like it was today you can climb Uluru but the Anangu don’t like it because it’s not what they used too do. At one place around the rock there was a cave sort of thing. It was the kitchen that the woman would crush up the nuts and things in. You could see smooth places where they must of done it most of the time. It was about 10 kilometers around.
Uluru is a Monolithic rock which means its one large rock with no joins. It’s made of arkose which is a course grained sandstone with lots of the mineral called feldspar. For dinner we had a meal outside under the stars near Uluru. We learnt about the stars and they had telescopes that we could see the moon and Saturn through!

Today is our first day at Yulara (the town where Uluru is.) We drove from Mt Conner this morning. All our days so far have been about 20 and sunny, the nights have been cool but we have still been able to rug up and have our dinners outside!

Today we went on a bus tour around Coober Pedy. We saw several under ground churches. We also saw the golf course. The golf course is all dust but the putting green is black, sand and sump oil. The golfers carry around a piece of turf to hit their next shot off. Cooper Pedy golf club is one of the only golf clubs to have reciprocal rights with Saint Andrews golf club in Scotland! As well we went to the opal mines and an under ground house. At the opal mines they have machines called noodling machines. Noodling is where they look through what some one else has already mined and find opals that they may have missed. You can make around 1 to 2 thousand dollars a week from noodling. The underground house was actually just like a normal house inside, except that the walls are sort of rough. Underground houses would be good to live in, I think, because they are fire safe and they are dark so they are good for sleeping. We also saw the dog fence. It was built to keep the dingos out of sheep grazing country down south. It goes for over 5000 kms and over QLD, SA and WA
Tara
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