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| Uluru at sunrise (love our bedhead hair!) |
The week in the timeshare gave us time to plan the rest of our stay here in Australia. One place we did not want to miss, even though it’s very difficult to get to, is Uluru (AKA Ayers Rock), in the center of the continent. It’s very expensive to fly there, so we decided to drive from where we were staying outside of the Melbourne area. We had a very ambitious plan, one which I’m happy to say we accomplished! We spent two 13 hour days just driving – only stopping for gas – in order to make it there. The first day we were mostly driving westward along the Murray River, so the scenery was interesting – lots of orchards, vineyards, and farmland. The second day we were headed north into the Outback – the scenery was pretty much the same scrubland for miles and miles and miles and miles. The road was straight, with the occasional curve here and there, just to make sure we were paying attention. It had one lane going each way, and was paved (or on bitumen, as they say out here). There wasn’t much traffic, just the occasional road train (semi trucks with three trailers attached – they create their own windstorm as they go by you!). Twice we saw wild emus in the desert alongside the road, which was a bonus! On the advice of our guidebook, we topped up our gas tank whenever we came across a station in the Outback, just in case. The distances are so great, and the stations are so sparse, you’d hate to run out of gas out there! On the second night of our trip we camped at Curtain Springs Station, just outside of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, where I got up in the middle of the night to pee, and was absolutely amazed by the stars! I’m not even sure how to put it into words – there were just so many of them filling the sky, almost more stars than sky – it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before!
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| Daron partway up Uluru |
Driving into the park for the first time, Uluru was a magnificent sight, quite the massive monolith! It is 1,142 feet above the ground and 2.2 miles long. Coming from Colorado that doesn’t seem very high, but after traveling through the flat desert for so long it really stands out. It is believed that two-thirds of the rock is below the surface. We were at Uluru at a special time – they had an unusually wet spring so the desert was quite green and full of wildflowers. It hadn’t been this lush for years. We felt very fortunate to see it like that. Equally fascinating are Uluru’s traditional owners, the aboriginal people who refer to themselves as the Anangu. In the harshest environment I can imagine, they have been able to survive and thrive. We learned about how they were able to do it, from digging over a meter in the sand for honey ants (a treat for them!), to sucking nectar from certain flowers like a lollipop, to gathering seeds and fruits. The desert was their grocery store and pharmacy and they knew how to utilize everything. It is believed that aboriginal people have lived in the Uluru area for 22,000 years. The aborigines here maintained their traditional lifestyle longer than aborigines in other parts of Australia, due to the remoteness of the area. Uluru wasn’t opened up to tourism until the 1940s, which is when life changed forever for the Anangu. They were not recognized as the traditional owners of Uluru until 1985 when the land was handed back to them, with part of the agreement being that they would lease it to the federal government for 99 years. We were told that of our $25 per person entry fee, they get only $1.20. We also learned that of the 300 or so Anangu people left, about 60% have diabetes, due to the change in their diets to a more Western one (white sugar, white bread, etc).
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| Hiking Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuta |
Most movies on Australia only show the desert aborigines, likes the ones here at Uluru, but the truth is at one time this continent had numerous tribes all over it, from the mountains to the rainforest, each with their own language, customs, foods, etc., and all very different from each other. It is thought that the aborigines originally arrived by sea to northern Australia 50,000 years ago. As the Europeans moved in, starting in 1788 with the first boatload of convicts, the aborigines were pushed out of their traditional lands. It took a long time for the Europeans to make it into the harsh red center of Australia, so the tribes around Uluru were the left alone for much longer than the others. There are many reserves across the country set aside for the aborigines to live on; to visit them you need to purchase a permit.
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| Giddy Diggin' sunset at Uluru! |
We got up close and personal with another Australian creature: the fly! The flies are terrible around Uluru, and from what we gathered they weren’t that bad during our time there, which means they can get worse! They aren’t like the regular American fly that is easily scared off by a wave of your hand – these flies stick to you and crawl all over your face. They try to get in your mouth and ears and eyes – ugh! And if you manage to scare them off, they come right back, right away – they are very determined to be as annoying as possible (and it works)! It’s a joke out here that everyone is doing the “Australian wave,” which is when you’re waving your hand in front of your face to try to scare off the flies (usually unsuccessfully). Everyone out here, including us, was doing the wave.
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| Plates full of local favorites... |
Besides the flies, we thoroughly enjoyed our time at Uluru, and tried to see all different facets of this great monolith. We watched the sunrise turn the rock a glowing orange; we walked the seven mile trail around the base; we watched the orange rock get darker at sunset; Daron climbed to the top of Uluru; and we listened to an Anangu elder speak at the cultural center. We splurged and had a nice buffet dinner with all the local animals as entrees: kangaroo (very good), crocodile (chewy), and barramundi (yum). Unfortunately, they were out of emu – I guess it is very popular. We also hiked amongst the nearby rock formation called Kata Tjuta (aborigine for “many heads”), where we came across a bunch of wild camels in the distance. Kata Tjuta consists of 36 domed rocks, with the tallest one being 650 feet higher than Uluru. It is also very impressive. Both sites have important spiritual significance for the Anangu.
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| Dinky the singing dingo sharing his favorite tune! |
That’s the Outback for you, full of surprises!
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