It was an early start - 4.30 a.m. with the sky still spiced with stars. The truck bumped out of town and rattled along a dirt track into the bush. Then it stopped and the driver got out to release into the darkness a small helium balloon. Her powerful torch tracked its movement upwards until it finally seemed to join the stars, becoming another pinpoint of light hanging high over Alice Springs.
Two more helium balloons were sent up, to test both the strength of the wind and its direction and suddenly, it was time to get going. Joe, the pilot, fired up the balloon, the gas flame roaring into the canopy until eventually it billowed out, an orange sun grounded in the darkness. Finally filled, it righted itself, ready for flight and then it was all legs over the side of the basket, a last blast of energy from the gas cylinders, the casting off of the ropes and we were up. Only a few heart-stopping feet off the ground at first as the base of the basket swished across the long grass - but definitely airborne.
Silently we rose and swung there, mesmerised. Southwards, in the distance, lay the great shadowy spread of the Simpson Desert. Close to, tree-tops passed below us as if it were they who were moving and not us. There was little sign of life: a few head of cattle meandered diagonally across the bush and a deserted homestead, its roof gone, was just visible beneath the tangle of undergrowth.
We stared out across the sky like sailors at sea, collars turned up against the chill dawn air - until the sun rose over the horizon and there, in the middle of Australia's Red Centre, another hot, hot day had begun.
The balloon ride ended with breakfast: steaming hot coffee and the bushtucker - in this case delicious, fresh-baked damper bread, spread with melting butter. Oh, and the cooler full of local champagne. In Australia, they know how to breakfast in style, especially in the bush.
The bush telegraph used to come through here, continuing northwards overland all the way up to Darwin. From there, it went underwater, linking Australia with Java, India and finally London. In steamship days, it took up to eight months for a letter to get back to England. With the telegraph, a message could be there in seven hours. Telegraph company employees were people of some standing. An early chief superintendent of telegraphs was married to a woman called Alice and the spring close to the station was named after her.
That was in the days when the railway didn't run quite as far as Alice Springs, which meant they had to use camel trains to do the last 500 km, transporting people, goods, timber and, in one case, a grand piano, up to the town. The first camels were brought in from Tenerife and used for exploration of the interior. Later, they were imported from Afghanistan which is why the great train that now ploughs its way up from Adelaide through Alice Springs and on towards Darwin is known as the Ghan.
Camels were ideal for the Red Centre. They could carry 350 kg and go for 16 days without water. Once the trains arrived, however, they were superfluous and were let loose into the bush where they thrived and multiplied. There are now something like 200,000 of them in the wild.
One evening, I took a ride on a tame one, out along the dried-up bed of the river Todd, its banks lined with river red gum trees whose roots can dig deep to find whatever water there is. Beyond, glowing in the setting sun, rose a magnificent stretch of the MacDonnell mountains, a range that runs east-west for all of 300 km.
In single-file, we ambled slowly along the track, saddles creaking as we rocked to and fro. A group of local aboriginal people, taking their ease on the sand under the shade of a tree, waved to us as we lumbered past. The Alice Springs area is the homeland of at least four groups of aboriginal peoples including the Arrente and the Walpiri whose songlines reach away 400 km in every direction, conveying stories of the past, the present and of the future.
Paul Ah Chee, of the South Arrente aboriginal group, is founder of and lead singer with the group Amanda, based in Alice Springs. Together with some friends, he set up the Aboriginal Cultural Centre which organises tours and talks as well offering didgeridoo lessons. (It's not easy to learn: you have to inhale and exhale at the same time, without cutting off the flow of air in either direction. I was happy to stop trying when I learned that, traditionally, it wasn't something women did anyway.) A married man with children, and loathe to leave Alice Springs, Ah Chee has set up a Web page as well as producing a CD rom on which people can hear some of his music and then order it direct from Alice Springs. Listening to one of his tapes, I wondered what he was singing about. "What all aboriginal people sing about," he said, "the struggle for our land."
Out in the bush, John - he wouldn't tell me his aboriginal name - tried to show me how to throw a boomerang. Not all of them are meant to come back. Some are made straight so that they fly through the air, stunning or killing their prey. Others curve through the air, corralling a flight of birds back towards the hunters before homing in dangerously on the thrower. Best to duck - the honed edge is both hard and sharp. None of my throws, of course, reached their target and John turned away in disgust.
I wasn't much better handling a witchitty grub - the juicy caterpillar, thick as a thumb, which the aboriginal peoples either roast alive or eat raw. "But if you eat them raw," said the guide, "be careful because they can be a bit squirmy." Full of protein, of course, like all bush tucker, except for the head, which you spit out.
Out at Uluru - the aboriginal name for Ayers Rock - I took another camel ride to catch another sunrise. By then, I was getting the hang of it. You mount while the camel is sitting and hold on to the metal bar of the saddle. Then it gets up, first raising its back legs so that you're tipped forwards. Then it raises its front legs so that you're tilted backwards. Or vice versa. I can't remember which. But that's not anything you have to worry about: the camel knows exactly what to do. All you have to do is to make like you're on a rocking horse. My camel at Uluru was Lulu, her soft teddybear fur offset by her huge, rotating yellow teeth and by her stomach which went in and out like a giant's bellows.
We climbed up and down sand dunes, passing mulga trees (the oak tree of the bush) and, in a gorge, a tall and ancient ghost gum, its bark a brilliant white against the red sand. Aboriginal people use the powder from the bark to paint their faces for ceremonial dancing. Among the trees flitted flocks of grey parrots, the underside of their wings tinted red. A couple of lively dingoes tracked us but kept their distance. A few kilometres over towards the south west, the great rock stood alone, one of the aboriginal people's most sacred sites.
The local Anangu people prefer its sacred nature to be respected and hope, therefore, that outsiders will not climb it. In fact, fewer people do climb it now: its bare stone incline is quite a challenge not so much when going up as coming down, and it claims at least one life every year. Two weeks before I arrived, a Japanese guide gallantly pursued the runaway sunhat of one of his group - chasing it over the edge and down into oblivion. It should be said, however, that most people who die on Uluru do so from heart attacks rather than from falling off.
Choosing not to tempt fate, I climbed till I reached the point where a chain railing starts - to which climbers cling, for not only is the going tough, the wind is lively as well. From my compromise position, I had a view of the lesser known but equally impressive Kata Tjuta, sometimes known as The Olgas - a collection of rocks which also serve as an aboriginal meeting place.
In fact, virtually the whole of Australia is a sacred site, whether it's a small pawpaw tree or a rock with a hole in it through which people can climb. But Uluru, rising 349 metres from the surrounding sandy scrubland, its bare stone surface burnished gold in the setting sun, must surely be the mightiest of them all.
All long-haul prices are ex-Dublin to Sydney: Qantas (from £937) is the speediest, with only a one-hour refuelling stop at Bangkok. Virgin (from £831) has a three-hour stop at Kuala Lumpur and Cathay Pacific (from £932) has a two-and-a-half-hour stopover at Hong Kong. u3500) you can fly Club Class with Qantas and sleep all the way on a real bed!
Sydney to Alice Springs: Qantas has a Boomerang Pass which allows travel within and between zones. Prices start at £110.
Where to stay, top range: Alice Springs Resort PO Box 3571 Northern Territory 0871.
Budget: Melanka Backpackers Resort, 94 Todd Street, Alice Springs and: http://www.ozemail. com.au/nttours General Information: Aussie Helpline in London: 01 4026896 and www.http//www.aussie.net.au