Driving from the airport into Alice Springs, the biggest "city" for miles and miles, we saw a herd of feral camels and crossed the raging river below. A river of sand? I was beginning to feel right at home! (The camels, not so much)
Our first afternoon in Alice Springs, we took bus tour of all 4 places of interest. The reptile center, the somewhat sad armed forces memorial, telegraph relay station and Royal Flying Doctor Service Station. Since we happened to be visiting during a "school holiday," we didn't get to see the School of the Air, which broadcasts radio lessons to children at remote stations in the Outback. The inhabitants of the Australian Outback are really tough people. Dealing with the hot, dry weather is one thing, but the remoteness is something entirely different.
In the evening, we attended an Aboriginal Culture Performance and Dinner at a little outdoor theater. Our host was interesting, and we got the chance to eat kangaroo! There it is on my plate, front and center:
It didn't have a whole lot of flavor and was rather chewy. I don't feel a need to ever try it again.
Our second afternoon was spent wandering the galleries of the town's main street where we happened along this ingenous sign. Australian is a completely different language!
And lastly, in addition to all of the amazing things mentioned above, Alice Springs is also home to some beautiful eucalyptus trees, which makes it smell really nice!
After spending about as much time as anyone would possibly want to spend in Alice Springs, we were picked up by a loquacious bus driver named "Smiley" who narrated the entire 5 hour journey to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Oh, wait. I take that back. He did play a few songs about kangaroos on CDs and killed about 25 minutes with a Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter video! His commentary, while a bit much to absorb all at once, did liven up the scenery, which looked pretty much exactly like this the whole way, quite a bit.
The Outback apparently received a lot of rain in November, which left it much greener than I had expected.
We made it!
After checking into the hotel, where we would actually spend very little time (and almost none of it sleeping) we got back on the bus with a bunch of other tourists and headed to Kata-Tjuta, the sort of sister rocks to Uluru (the proper name for Ayer's Rock).
The path to nothing in particular. It was pretty hot and there were a ton of flies. The rocks do look impressive against the blue sky.
After our hike, there was another stop at a viewing a point where you could look one way and see Kata-Tjuta and then look the other way and see Uluru. Nice, but pretty far away from either of them. Gosh, there is soooooooooooo much space in Australia!! Our last stop of the day was at the designated tour bus sunset viewing area. We were greeted with some complimentary wine and extra salty trail mix to tide us over while we hunkered down to watch the sunset. It was recommended to stand in the same spot and take pictures about every 10 minutes until right before sunset, when you should up the frequency to every few minutes. When you got home, your time lapse shots would come together and show Uluru in an astounding rainbow of colors. I followed these instructions pretty closely, but ended up with about a dozen nearly identical pictures. And just as the sun actually set and the sky was the most beautiful, my battery died. Still, the one below isn't too shabby:
After sunset, we climbed back on the bus to be returned to our hotel. We ate dinner (not one of the better meals I had in Australia) and attempted to sleep before our 3:30 AM wake up call which would allow us to be out in front of the hotel at 4 AM for the Uluru sunrise tour! It was dark and a little chilly, but anticipating the high temperatures later on, I didn't bring a jacket. We drove to the park and they served us some awful coffee as we huddled around waiting for the sun to rise. I can't say it was particularly spectacular, but going on the tour did allow us to start our trek around the rock while one side was still in the shade.
Not a bad picture, especially considering this was about 6:30 AM.
Our hike around Uluru was one of my favorite parts of this Australian odyssey. Uluru has always been a sacred place for the Aboriginies, and while I don't want to get really hippy-dippy, it's hard to deny that it has a sort of other wordly feel to it. Uluru is a huge monolith in the middle of a lot of nothing. The path around the bottom took us about 3 hours to complete, and you would have to spend years studying it to get to know every little nook and cranny.
Yup, we went all the way around!
One of the biggest surprises for me was that Uluru is really lumpy up close! This shouldn't really be a surprise given that I know Uluru is a rock exposed to the elements, but in all the pictures taken from a distance (and with special filters?) it looks pretty smooth. There are countless holes and divots from water running down and sheer faces where pieces have broken off. Several of the more interesting features have especially sacred meanings for the Aboriginies and photographs were prohibited.
On the far side of the rock, away from the road, we only saw maybe 4 other people. The solitude was pretty amazing. Of course, we weren't really alone, as there were many caterpillars, beetles and even a snake making their way through the red dirt.
Returning to our hotel a little after lunch time, there was no time for a shower (gross) before we got on another plane, this one bound for Cairns.
No comments:
Post a Comment