Ayers Rock, or Uluru as it is known by Aboriginals, is a large rock monolith, located nearly exactly in the center of Australia. It's a pretty popular attraction, and a good reason to visit the outback. In the winter, or perhaps spring. Need I remind you it is currently the middle of the summer? However, that's when I had the time, so I decided to go for it anyways.
After booking the flight, and even finding a partner in madness (Martha), a few weeks of watching the 36-40 C weather forecasts gave way for a much more reasonable 30-33 for the Christmas weekend.
A seemingly interminable (3 hr 20 min) flight later (I have got to stop booking early flights - the probability of me being motion sick seems to be directly proportional to earliness of departure) we got to the impressive Ayers Rock airport, which contains 2 gates, and 1 baggage belt. The local car rental companies seemed to have gotten a cut rate from Mitsubishi, so we got one of the many Mitsu 380s, complete with license plates reminding us where we were
As if we didn't notice:
Since it was still early in the day, we drove directly to the rock. Incidentally, we parked right beside the climb to the top (which was closed to high winds). A few words about the climb - while it is a popular tourist attraction, the rock holds a spiritual significance to the traditional Aboriginal landowners, who request that visitors do not climb it. While they are not able to prohibit it outright, they wage a pretty serious guilt campaign over it. In recognition of their culture, we decided ahead of time that we will not climb it. As it was getting hot, we did a few shorter walks nearby. The biggest surprise was seeing a decent amount of trees and shrubs around, as I have always associated outback with complete desert. There were even a few water streams running down the sides of the rock.
In about an hour or two we retreated to the air conditioned comfort of the car, in what would become the standard day schedule - walking before 1 pm and after 6. So we made plans to come back at sunset, and went off to get checked in to the hostel (which was nothing special, just a dorm), get some food, and rest (which I definitely needed after feeling, ahem, less than peachy on the flight).
We went back to the rock at sunset, and got treated to the postcard view
along with eeeeveryone else - I think literally every tourist at Uluru was at the sunset view point at that moment :)
Nonetheless, the sunset view was truly spectacular. It's hard to describe the surreality of a giant rock sticking out from what is basically a completely flat landscape. The setting sun makes the color of the rock slowly change from it's daytime pale pink to orange and then to brown. Absolutely amazing.
Back at hostel, we made dinner, and enjoyed it with the accompaniment of some local performing singing covers to popular oldies.
Kata Tjuta (which means "the other rock" - just kidding, means "many heads) is about 50 km away from Uluru, and was the setting for next day's adventures. Keeping the heat in mind, we set out pretty early, passing this sign
around 9 am. This walk, known as "Valley of the Winds", was probably the highlight of the trip. It wound its way around the "heads", and had a more adventurous feel to it than Uluru. Not much to say here other than to show pictures
Interestingly, despite many warnings to take adequate amount of water (1L/hr), the 6 km trail had not one, but two water tanks along it way, as well as a solar powered emergency radio. The reason for this wasn't hard to see, as we encountered at least one pair of hikers carrying only a 500 ml water bottle each, despite the 30+C heat. I did not inquire as to their reading comprehension ability.
A local "highway" turnoff along the way was something worth showing:
(by the way, this is a very high quality dirt track - doesn't even require a 4WD!)
We like Kata Tjuta so much we came back that evening for the sunset. While driving there in the evening, Martha spotted a group of camels (!) to the side
So, I'm happy to report that while not a single kangaroo was spotted during the trip, we did encounter unique Australian wildlife. (Camels are of course not native to Australia - they were brought here by Afghan laborers in the mid 20th century, who set them loose when they themselves left Australia, and couldn't be bothered to take the camels back - presumably there were plenty more camels where they came from. Having no natural predators, and a similar climate to their native one, the camels are still doing fine).
That night we made a slighly misguided attempt to wake up to see the stars - this would've been a good plan had we checked the moon set time correctly - the moon actually didn't set until an hour before sunrise, making stargazing a rather frustrating affair.
As Martha wanted to be in Sydney for Christmas eve, she wisely headed back the following morning, while I was left to contemplate the many different meanings of the word "desert" (my own flight back was the following day). I did the walk around Uluru (about 10 km), being in absolute solitude for about an hour of the two it took me to do it.
While of course these are only photos, my appearance should give some idea of the sun intensity. I'm entirely covered not b/c I enjoy being hotter than necessary, but b/c I didn't trust the sunscreen to keep from burning in the high noon sun. In fact, I still got a little burn on the nose and cheekbones, even though sunscreen was liberally applied.
Back at the hostel, things were really boring - unlike New Zealand, conversation partners were few and far between. I managed to strike up a talk with Casey, whom Martha and myself have met a day earlier. He is a semi-pro panoramic photographer, and was in Uluru for the professional purpose of taking photos. At this point, both of us were quite bored, since he was waiting for some cloud to spice up the view (the nearest clouds were 4 days away). The conversation mostly revolved around photography and travel - he is actually a paid photographer for the Australian Air Force. A curious point I found out is that he shoots on film, even though he gets the slides scanned and does all postprocessing and printing digitally. Film is apparently not dead yet.
As efforts to talk to people at dinner mostly failed (the most un-talkative crowd of any hostel I stayed at, I think), I watched some TV and went to catch up on some sleep, which gave me time in the morning to discover the following local curiosity:
I'm pretty much as mystified about this sign as anyone. However, earlier that morning, I was approached by an aboriginal who tried to get my to buy him beer (they're banned from doing so at the resort), so perhaps not entirely unreasonable, at least the first part. Also makes me rethink the "cultural value" of Uluru, but also two wrongs don't make a right.
3 more hours and another watching of Ratatouille later, I was back in Sydney. Overall, a very good trip, although probably 2 days would've been enough, as I was pretty bored on the last day, in case that wasn't apparent from the writing. Nonetheless, a feeling of being in one the most remote and spectacular places in the world is hard to beat. And Martha, thanks for the company as always.
All photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/RedCenter
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