April 17, 2008.

I don’t actually know what time I got up today. I thought I got up at 5am to be ready in time but I think it was actually 4:30 because I had changed time zones and not realized it. I am so lucky It was earlier instead of later because that would have been horrible to miss my trip because it was a 3 day safari. We drove for 5 hours out to the Olga’s and we were in the middle of the outback. Almost exactly in the middle of Australia it was really neat but also really sparse. I sat next to a nice lady named Julie who was around mom and dad’s age and this was the first vacation that her and her husband Tony had taken together with out kids since having them. (She had a daughter my age) We had some lovely conversation plus I slept a lot. We got to The Olgas and did a 7 k bush walk which was pretty cool then we headed to Uluru/Ayers Rock ( Aboriginal/European Name) technically it is Uluru because the Australian Government gave it back to the Aboriginals in the 90’s so now it is owned by the Aborginals but is on a 100 year lease to the parks department and they work together managing it. We went and watched it at Sunset which was pretty neat and we had some Champagne. After that we headed to our campsite and made dinner then we all hung out by the fire and set up our Swags. About 6 of us slept in our swags by the fire while everyone else slept inside. I’ll give you one guess what I chose J The Swags were like big canvas sleeping bags that you put your sleeping bag inside of . But it protects you from the dirt and it has a mattress it was quite lovely and the stars were amazing.