An escape from a miserable morning in Melbourne at 6am was just what we needed as we headed to Alice Springs where the sun was shining and the temp was above 30C, brilliant! Having only 2.5 hours before flying to Uluru airport, we decided to hop in a taxi and see exactly what Alice Springs had to offer. The answer? Not a lot! The town, dominated by an Aboriginal population, was relatively quiet and to be honest, we didn't really spent a huge amount of time there! Onwards to Uluru. Our hotel, The Lost Camel, was excellent. The hotel was part of the Ayers Rock resort, which consisted of several hotels, a campsite, pub, town square with cafes and restaurants and some swimming pools. Oh, and some camels. With the sun blazing and not a cloud in the sky, we decided to book ourselves on to the Sounds of Silence dinner that evening and off we went on the bus to the lookout for Ayers Rock where we were supplied with champagne, kangaroo and crocodile canapes and some didgeridoo music from the didgeridoo man. Interesting fact No 1: Kangaroo means "I don't know" in Aboriginal language! Way back when, when asked what the animal was called, the aboriginals replied that they didn't know by saying Kangaroo. Interesting fact No 2: Didgeridoo is the most unplayed instrument in the world, despite 100,000 being shipped out of Australia on a yearly basis! Watching the sun set over Ayers Rock was quite spectacular and despite looking like I was an extra in Out of Africa, we managed to get some good photos of us both (these are to follow once we get back to Melborneo). Next stop was the 'restaurant' that was laid out in the sand -we had befriended John and Marcus from Ontario, Canada and so we sat with them at the table, along with some Italians and Spanish folk who were extremely friendly. It was one of those situations where you felt a complete idiot for not uttering a single word of their languange. One of the guys from Barcelona had only been speaking English for one month but still managed to give us a Spanish history lesson! Quite remarkable.
The Sounds of Silence was slighty cheesy but a random night all the same. The BBQ food was great, the wine was flowing and the chat from the astronomer guy was good enough to keep us all awake! We saw Jupiter through a telescope (with 6 of it's 63 moons) and Bob claims he saw a shooting star but apparently I was looking the wrong way - whatever.
Randomly, at the start of the meal, a bride and groom got out of their car to join us having just been married (obviously) but didn't appear to have anyone else other than their photographer to help them celebrate so we all had to pretend to be their wedding guests! Rather strange but by that time we had all been well oiled and were happy to comply. Bob and Morag were the last to leave, good times : )
Having looked at the prices of the tours, we decided to simply hire a car and do the trips to Uluru and CatchaTutu (okay Kata Tjuta is it's proper name but that was too difficult for us) ourselves. Noone else seemed to cotton on to the fact that they might have saved themselves a few hundred dollars and a lot of timewasting by doing this!! mwahaha. So off we went to Ayers Rock one fine morning, trainers on and a truck load of water in the backpack with factor 40 sunscreen slathered on and completely useless Aeroguard skooshed all over. We successfully battled against the flies walking around Uluru; we initially laughed at the people with the fly nets over their heads as they looked absolutely ridiculous......2 hours later, we were thinking they had the right idea!! The walk was approximately 3 hours long, fairly flat and quite awesome. It really is quite a spectacular sight up close, this massive lump of rock in the middle of nowhere. We decided to return the next day for a glimpse of the colour changes from orange to red to reddy brown to charcoal at sunset, from the boot of our car. Bob and I weren't quite observant enough to see the changes ourselves but a sequence of photos did indeed prove that it changes colour! Back to the hotel for some scran and vino, in bed by 10pm, lots of sun and fresh air did not party animals make!
Next day we conquered the Valley of the Winds 8km walk on rather rough and steep terrain in 40C!! Again, quite spectacular walking through the 36 'many heads' that the catchatutu rocks were named after. Walking down into the valley and completing the full walk didn't seem like an option for most people who were there, so for the last third of the walk, we were by ourselves in the wilderness, I was feeling quite the adventurer! Back to the pool and a lazy afternoon before heading to the neighbouring hotel for some cocktails and dinner :
An amazing three days in the Northern Territory, with the sun shining and the bluest of blue skies. We couldn't have asked for a better start to our holiday! Next stop Fremantle, Perth. Photos to follow xx
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