I was woken up at 4:50am by the now familar boot of Sally, our tour guide, in the middle of my back - it was a courtesy service she gave to everyone to ensure a prompt departure. Soon the air was full of yawns and hasking coughs (because a lot of us were either suffering from acute woodsmoke inhalation or emphasema caused by all the red dust). Whatever people say about sleeping under the stars being romantic, the painful truth is it's cold, dirty, and you get eaten alive. No mosquitos because there's no water my arse, I've now got +30 bites. I'm counting down the hours before I can get into a proper bed again.

We had a hasty breakfast, then drove to the Kaja Tjuta Sunrise Viewpoint (tm) which we shared with considerably less people than yesterday thankfully. You could see The Olgas/Kaja Tjatu on one side and Ayers Rock/Uluru on the other, and we were priviliged enough to watch the sun come up from behind The Rock in a blood red sky, and then light up Kaja Tjuta. It was absolutely fabulous (better than the sunset IMHO).

Once the show was over, we quickly buzzed over to Kaja Tjata. When the government was handing back the monuments, they insisted that one of either Uluru or Kaja Tjuta was to be open for the public to climb. The Anangu eventually chose to close Kaja Tjuta because it is more sacred. It is a 'men's place' where all the men's most sacred rituals (inma) take place. If women decide to sneak up and spy on the men's rituals and are caught, they can be killed, that's how sacred it is. Not only that, but only the appropriately initiated boys are permitted to be privvy too, and this initiation is done from elder to appropriate younger male relative by word of mouth only, and not spoken to anyone else - it's a bit like the Masons really except without the silly handshake. This 'learning' is done by the father taking the son along 20km walks around the rocks telling him names for things and how to find things and use things, and songs and stories related to the path, and if the son gets anything wrong they both have to go back to the beginning of the walk and start again. ...or maybe that *is* how the Mason's do it, I don't know.

Of course Sally's refreshing take on this is that Kaja Tjuta is a men's place because most of the Olgas look...um (considers the audience and gauges accordingly) ...they look an awful lot like womens bits. She's got a point actually - pornography on geology, you should look up some pictures and see what I mean. Especially when your stoned on gum tree leaves too.

Yes, we were also shown yet more plants that were hallucinagenic when eaten, or got you stoned (which explains something about the Anangu culture) and a whole bunch of things that could cure colds or cuts by being rubbed on the skin or burnt and the smoke inhaled, or boiled and the broth drunk. The Anangu were actually disease free until the white man arrived, and this is unsurprising really when the whole landscape is one giant cough sweet.

Another random fact - the Anangu of central australia don't actually play the digeridoo, only the northern clans do that. And according to their law, if women play the digeridoo they are made infertile. Christ, next they'll be saying the boomerangs actually come from Iceland and make you blind if you throw them too often...

Kaja Tjatu is a bunch of bumpy looking rocks that look like a whole bunch of bosoms made of red rock laid out in a field. Kings Creek had some of these features to but these things are huge, at least 1.5km tall, some even have scrub and trees on top. The centre is closed because its sacred, but you can walk around it and there is one walk permitted through it called The Valley of the Winds and it's said that it only hows a gale through it if you aren't a good spirit (it was quite gusty so clearly some of us had things on our conscience). Once we had got to the heart of the walk, Sally took the lightweights back, and the heavyweights (incl. myself) circumnavigated the rocks and got back to the bus an hour or two later.

Once we were all gathered together again the sun was just reaching it's zenith, so we fled back to the campsite and hide in the shade, some sleeping in the shade, some frying themselves by the pool, and some cowering in the darkest recesses of the covered areas to escape the scalding heat and viscious radiation levels. We hung around until the sun had swung round again and the sting had been taken out of it, then bused over to Uluru for a second time, this time parking up right at the base of it.

Uluru is a big bugger, it has to be said. Whether or not to climb Uluru though...there was a question. In truth, the council close the walk anyway for about 200 days of the year if it looks like rain, or it looks like its going to be too hot, or because a ritual is going on, or someone has died - so mostly the choice is made for you. And indeed loads of people fall off Uluru and the locals hate it because each death or 'Sorry Business' requires a period of about 4 weeks mourning and people cutting themselves as a sign of respect. In their culture is someone dies in a house they just up sticks and leave and never go back to the place (because wherever you are born or die you leave a little part of your spirit). Also in the cultural centre certain pictures in glossy booklets and billboards were taped over with a little note saying 'this photo has been covered as a mark of respect to the deceased as per Anangu law'.

For my own part, I took one look at it and said 'sod that!'. Its a path up an exposed face of the rock and no steps have been carved out, you just have to shuffle up a slippery sheer face clinging on to a chain, often 100s of metres up and totally exposed. Using my camera zoom I had a look at the people going up and some were looking very pale and scared, some were turning round and descending on their bums, and the rest were progressing very slowly and carefully. I'm not good with heights, so I stayed on terra firma. And at least I could then claim I didn't climb the rock to respect the Anangu's beliefs...

Of course there was other entertainment at Uluru other that the climb (which only three of our party decided to do). There was the extremely lightweight 1.6km Mala walk which took in a few caves and paintings, and then there was the full on 9.4km base walk which I did, allowing you to quietly walk all around the rock and stare at it intimately.

The base walk can get a bit frustrating sometimes. Many areas of it haven't just been cordoned off, but there is also a ban on photography (because the Anangu believe that if you photograph something you take a little part of it away - hence why you have to cover up pictures of the dead). Its annoying because the scared bits are also the best bits, all the interesting caves and exciting rock features.

I am sort of getting it in terms of the Anangu belief system now. Basically in ancient times, the times of creation, the land was filled with mythical beasts which were huge animals that behaved like people, and they sprung out of the rock and the earth and returned to it again at the end of it and formed all sorts of rock formations that look like creatures. This is why everything looks like something round here and has a tale. The most illustrative of this and the whole basis of the Tjukurpa (which translates sort of as 'the law' but is actually a set of stories, rituals and ways of behaving more akin to our Bible) is as follows:-

There is a green patch on the side of Uluru near a cave. The Tjukurpa for that feature is the a huge blue tongued lizard once lived there. One day it was hungry and went out hunting and came across an injured Emu with a spear in its side. Now it knew that the spear meant it was another mans kill and it would be wrong to take it and eat it itself, but the lizard did so anyway. Of course, soon the men whose kill it was came along and asked the Lizard had it seen an injured emu go by - the lizard quickly hid the carcass and said no. Then he cut it up and carried it back his cave, though he was in so much of a hurry that he dropped pieces as he went and the men found the pieces and knew it would be a trail to the thief, and so followed him back to his cave. There, they lit a fire at the base of the cave and choked to Lizard out, and the green mark is the mark it made on the rock as it fled the cave, though the men killed him anyway.

The story has a couple of layers. It explains a fundamental law i.e don't steal another mans kill, and it is also locked into a moralistic tale that is easy to remember and pass down, and is linked to a feature on the rock to remind people of the tale, and to remind them to pass the story on. Thus the whole land has stories linked to it and you can see various animals from the time of creation that have been turn to rock (like the turtle or the winking cat at Kings Creek) or marks of adventures (like the green mark on Uluru). Part of initiation was to be walked round all the sacred sites and learn all the stories and therefore all the law and wisdom. Not only that, but because there is so much to learn, the information had been cleverly split into mens learning and womens learning and each sex only has obligation to memorise and pass down their stories and songs. Not only that, but some inma have different versions with more information depending on how initated you are. These inma are different for each region and your birthright in that region carries an obligation the learn and pass on this knowledge, but only the knowledge of that region so each tribe has different inma and stories/dreamings - and this is the whole basic workings of the Tjukurpa.

Practical upshot: The basewalk was very pretty but I couldn't take photos of it because most of it was either a sacred men's area or women's area. Good stuff though and I was knackered by the end of it. Thankfully the sunset watching was much more lowkey this time and we saw it from the campsite lookout this time, enabling us to stroll back to our campsite when we'd had enough.

The problem with swags is no-one has personal space and this was starting to tell on some people now. The friendliness was fraying a bit and more people were hiding in corners reading books or wandering off. Thankfully we had to be up at 4:50am again for the long haul back to Alice and that gave most people the excuse to go to bed immediately after dinner/supper. There was a bit of digeridoo and guitar playing going on by the fire but only the really hardcore socialites hung on for any length of time.

Only one more night in the swag, thank god for that. Stars are very nice but remember,you can look out of a tent door at them just as effectively and at least tents have mossie nets. At least I haven't got any bite on my face yet I suppose...