Well, you didn't think we were going to go to Australia for a month without seeing Uluru, did you?

The beadier-eyed among you might be thinking that this looks suspiciously good for a photo taken by us, and you'd be on to something - we did take pictures (some of them are even good, honest), but in our infinite wisdom we managed to pack the camera USB cable in a bag which is now locked away somewhere in the bowels of Sydney airport, so unless we can find a computer with a memory card slot you'll have to use your imaginations to fill in the visual gaps for now. (If you're struggling, think lots of red sand.)

21st January

Our original plan was to fly to Alice Springs, famous as a gateway to Uluru (or Ayers Rock, depending on how right-on your geography teachers were - its official name is in fact "Uluru/Ayers Rock" which manages to be both cumbersome and pusillanimously non-committal), and use the town as a base for exploring the area. This was based on the - as it turned out - staggeringly inaccurate assumption that Alice Springs was about an hour's drive from Uluru. Multiply that by five or six and you're closer to the actual journey time - they're a whopping 280 miles apart (or 450 km, for you futuristic metric people). Suddenly the flying 48 hour trip we'd had in mind didn't seem quite so do-able.

Luckily, though, it turns out that there's an airport right by Uluru itself, and you can fly direct from Sydney (without having to show a shred of identification, I might add, although I was "randomly" selected for an explosives search on both the incoming and outgoing flight, and even set the blasted thing off the second time. Apparently suncream can trigger it - this seems to me a bit of a flaw in a security system designed for use in Australia). I don't know whether the plane's flying unusually low or whether there's simply no cloud cover, but we're treated to sweeping views for the entire flight - Australia's so-called Red Centre really does say it all in the name: vast expanses of red earth punctuated only by a few salt lakes, which look more like white sand from the air. Apparently there are also over a million dromedaries roaming wild in this area (they were introduced as exploration aids back in the 1840s), but my current prescription isn't quite up to spotting any.   

Ayers Rock airport is tiny - when we come in to land, the plane first touches down on nothing more than a sandy expanse, which only later gives way to an actual runway (the airport has the same number of runways as Gatwick; now there's food for thought). Helpfully, a free shuttle service meets every flight and takes passengers to Ayers Rock Resort - and if you've flown in here, that's where you're staying. The resort comprises a handful of hotels, a campsite and a "town centre" which is home to a few souveneir shops, a supermarket and a restaurant. Being completely self-contained, it's a slightly surreal place - apparently the combination of the remoteness and the chlaustrophobia means that the average staff member lasts only three months. Staying here isn't cheap - which is fair enough when you consider that it's in the middle of nowhere and everything has to be trucked in - so we decide to keep costs down as much as possible by staying on the campsite. They have a few permanent canvas tents you can rent, complete with laminate flooring and proper beds; we luck out and are assigned a four bed tent, meaning we have space to swing even a large, uncooperative cat. I imagine these tents would be great in the cooler months (hot water bottles and extra blankets are provided, just in case), but, interestingly, in 43° heat they become indistinguishable from saunas. In fact, it's actually cooler outside than in, so as soon as we've dumped our bags we beat a quick retreat to the swimming pool.

After a late and particularly unpleasant lunch (though it could probably have been worse - I don't imagine much good can come of serving sushi 1,000 miles from the sea) we book ourselves into an astronomy session at the local observatory. This is supposedly one of the best spots in the world to see the night sky, and our astronomer guide, Trevor, is that fantastic combination of incredibly knowledgeable and contageously enthusiastic. Armed with a handy laser pointer (which can apparently interfere with planes, so don't try this at home, kids) he teaches us several ways to find due South, shows us all sorts of Southern hemisphere constellations (as well as the occasional upside-down Northern one) and the odd planet, and then sets up several telescopes so we can see everything from the surface to the moon to a cluster of newly born stars.

22nd January

By Friday we've mastered the art of dealing with the heat: hang out in fancy hotels. Judging by the number of suspiciously familiar-looking people we spy sprawled, asleep, over lobby sofas with backpacks at their feet, this isn't an entirely original strategy. I try kangaroo for lunch, which is actually reasonably tasty, and then it's off for the afternoon's activities: a dot painting workshop followed by the star attraction, Uluru itself. Dot painting is the aboriginal style of decoration you see adorning everything from didgeridoos to mousemats, though we're surprised to learn that it only emerged in the 1970s. Our teacher is a local Anangu woman named Happy, whose parents seem to have named her before taking time to assess her personality. Studiously avoiding eye contact she draws a few shapes in the sand for us, while our interpreter provides a somewhat patchy explanation of the concepts behind dot painting, and we're then let loose on the paints and canvases and left to our own devices.

There are very few universal symbols in dot painting (though you can see a few common ones here) - each piece serves to convey a story, and the chances are you'll need to be told that story in order to fully make sense of the visual represeantations. The story elements are meant to be painted first, as they're the most important part of the picture, and the background dots are added afterwards - we're provided with bottles of paint with nozzle applicators specifically for the purpose, but I try the traditional way of making dots, which is to use the end of a stick (well, in this case a cocktail stick, but that doesn't have quite the same aura of authenticity), dipped in paint. This may explain why I'm the only person not to finish their painting.

After the workshop Happy, who seems to have opened up a bit, leads us on a walk around part of Uluru's base, taking us to caves and a water hole while explaining the Dreamtime legend of the serpent woman, which is interwoven with these parts of the rock. She points out what Aboriginals consider to be the evidence backing up the stories - physical traces which 'prove' that they really happened, such as trails of 'blood' left on the rock by a wounded warrior snake, or the mark of a wriggling serpent winding its way around the stone. She also shows us how various bush foods would be gathered and prepared (the area immediately surrounding Uluru is surprisingly lush, with plenty of plant life), though when asked if she still eats them today she smiles and tells us that she likes Wheetabix.

Finally, we're driven out away from Uluru to a viewpoint from which to see the sunset. Watching the sun rise or set over Uluru is always billed as a "must do", but to be honest we're both a bit underwhelmed. I think it's because - to my surprise - you're not actually watching the sun set behind the rock, so forget pictures of Uluru silhouetted against a stunning sky. No, what you're supposed to be bowled over by is the changing colour of the rock as the sun sets off to one side, but I can't say either of us really notices this. I mean yes, it  changes colour in that it gets darker, but then so does everything around it; that's what generally happens when the sun recedes. Still, it's a great spot for that picture postcard view, and the bus driver tells us in fascinating detail about how Uluru was formed (to cut a very long story short, just in case you too were wondering how a gigantic monolith came to be in the middle of a desert, it's a sandstone formation which built up when the area was underwater, and has become tipped 90° to one side so that the layers now run top to bottom. One end of the rock is estimated to be 50 million years younger than the other).

23rd January

I'd never heard of Kata Tjuta (also known as The Olgas) before coming here, but they're a series of domes which share a national park with Uluru, and their highest peak is in fact taller than Uluru's. We're up at the ungodly hour of 4:40 (which actually isn't all that bad if you've made it into bed by half past nine for the first time since you were ten) to get there in time to see the sun rise over them. Neither of us rates this much higher than Uluru's sunset, but there's another good reason for getting up so early - we're doing the 8km 'Valley of the Winds' walk through Kata Tjuta, and it's strongly advised to be finished before the heat of the day really kicks in - indeed, you're not even allowed on the walk after 11am. It's a really enjoyable amble (occasionally a scramble) with some wonderful views, and we even spot a mother and baby kangaroo at close quarters. I realise this is probably about as exciting to most Australians as seeing a pigeon, but that doesn't stop me from taking eleventy-nine photos.

After a slightly panicked dash to get to the airport (Australian bus drivers, while friendly, seem to think that unless you're jumping up and down while gesturing wildly with your arms you can't really want to get on the bus) we're all set for the next leg of our journey, which takes to Port Douglas, a plan which is based entirely on a vague memory I have of liking the sound of it when reading a travel brochure aged about 15. What can possibly go wrong?