While I’ve recapped the major hikes and destinations of our tour to the Red Center, there are a few moments I missed. This post details my entire trip with Mulgas Adventures.

This is our simple room at Annie’s Place, where the tour departs from. The price of the tour includes a free stay here upon return.

Here’s a shot from the van on the morning of our departure… around 5:30am.

If you are driving in front of the Mulgas van, it must be funny to see these bright red lips floating in your rearview mirror.

Seeing a joey was one highlight of the trip.

During the LONG ride from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon, we play group games in the van.

And we draw our home country’s flags on the van windows.

Our tour guide and driver extraordinaire, Angus, hangs these signs on the windshield.

Here’s a warning for any coffee lovers with dairy allergies… there is no soy milk in the Outback. I consequently did not drink coffee for three days.

And water is very limited.

Love this shot of our group hike at Kings Canyon.

Afterwards we stop at the side of the road to pick up firewood for our first night of camping.

This couple figures out an ingenious way to chop up long pieces of wood — they wedge it between two trunks and then push until it breaks off into smaller sections… but something goes wrong. Check out my very first GIF:

All of us have black hands by the end of our wood collecting adventure:

Angus bundles up the wood on top of our trailer:

We drive to the Mulgas camping spot for night one. We’ll sleep outside under the stars (or in our case, clouds). There is a large, empty shipping container with cooking supplies.

Angus whips up a delicious BBQ meal. It’s around 10pm at this point and I am so tired! We’ve been awake since 5am this morning.

These magnetic flashlights provide ample light for our food prep. There is no other source of electricity.

We light a campfire and prepare to enjoy dinner.

It’s around 11pm by the time dinner is over and I’m anxious to get into my swag bag (a cross between a sleeping bag and a tent) to catch some ZZZ’s. The group plays music well into the night but I pop in earplugs. We are scheduled to wake up around 5am the next day.

Here’s a shot of our campsite in daylight:

And here’s our rustic bathroom situation…

The next day we hike Kata Tjuta.

In the afternoon we move on to Uluru… in the rain.

We spend the second night at a different campsite. This one has a large communal room for meals. We still sleep outside in our swag bags.

We enjoy kangaroo meat for lunch the next day. It’s flavorful but very chewy. All of the food on this tour is quite good.

Here are some images from our base walk at Uluru.

And here are two scenic shots from our trip back to Alice Springs —

It was quite an adventure, even at the mercy of the weather. While our hikes were beautiful regardless of the perpetual cloud cover, I do feel like I missed out on a quintessential Outback experience by not seeing Uluru in all its splendor. But it’s part of the deal we make as travelers — we witness each place at a particular moment in time, regardless of external factors. A friend of mine and exceptional photographer, Mary Costa, featured a post on her blog a few months ago from a day-after wedding shoot with a couple in Washington, DC. While Mary lamented the unphotogenic construction scaffolding around the Washington monument, the enthusiastic bride exclaimed, “It’s okay! It’s a moment in time!” That stuck with me and I thought back to it while hiking around Uluru. Yes, I would’ve preferred a cloud-free trip, but that doesn’t take away from how special our time at the Red Center was. I will always remember this time fondly.

And in the spirit of writing an honest review, I have one complaint about this tour, and it’s related to my travel style (as outlined a few paragraphs into this post). There’s little emphasis on sleep on this tour — and there are lots of gap year kids who want to party (I gather from our tour guide that this is fairly consistent on each trip). I would have preferred to tour with like-minded travelers who are more focused on enjoying the sights than staying up late and sleeping on the van the next day. I felt grumpy on days 2 and 3 because I didn’t get much sleep, as the music played well past midnight and our wake-up time was usually 5 or 6am (and my lack of coffee didn’t help — but that is my own fault; silly milk allergies and lack of available soy). If you are reading this and think I am a stodgy old woman, then please sign up for this tour!! It is the one for you. But if you are looking for more emphasis on seeing the sights and getting a good night’s sleep, bear this in mind when choosing a tour company in the Outback.

This post is sponsored by Muglas Adventures, who generously hosted my 3 day tour of the Outback. Opinions, clearly, are my own.