We had a lie in this morning, not getting up till 5.45am to try to catch sunrise over Uluru. The Ayers Rock Resort is just about 5 km from the entry to the base of the rock and the Anangu (the name the Aboriginal owners of Uluru prefer to be called) Cultural Centre. (I’m glad we’ve seen a cultural centre because it will stop Sid making his constant joke that there’s more culture in a pot of yoghurt than there is in Australia). We’d seen bikes for hire at the campsite yesterday and so decided after yesterday’s walk around Kings Canyon, we would cycle round the base of the rock – it’s around 9.5km. Some people climb the rock, but we’d read everywhere before we came and now we’re here, that it’s a sacred site to the Anangu and they prefer you not to climb it, although it is allowed (it’s a very steep rock and quite dangerous and difficult, though loads of people do it).
So off we set in the dark, and then saw this amazing site which is the rock. We’d seen it as we drove through the desert approaching Ayers Rock – you can hardly miss it! (Although I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that about 140km outside of Ayers Rock we saw what we at first thought was the Rock, but couldn’t make out how you could see it from that distance. Well, the answer was, you can’t. What we first saw was Mount Connor, and our mistake caused us much mirth!). But nothing matches that first sight of Uluru close up – it’s another of those sights that cannot be captured on postcards or photos. It is truly incredibly, rising up red out of the red desert beneath it.
And, interestingly (or we thought so) geologists believe it probably goes for 6km (yes 6km not 6m) below the ground also (why doesn’t it reach England then if digging in England as a child meant you might reach Australia?).
As it turned out, the climb up the rock was closed – they close it each day that the temperature is going to be above 36C and as it hit around 42C yesterday, it was closed. Even so, at that hour there weren’t too many people walking around the base track for us to cycle and really enjoy it (many people just take the coach tours out to see the rock at sunrise and don’t do the base walk).
From there we got back in the car (the Beast carried the bikes from place to place comfortably) and drove out (25km) to the Olgas or Kata Tjuta to give it its proper name. This is another geological oddity, although less famous than the rock – 36 individuual huge stone mounds. We drove to the viewing point but even from there I couldn’t get them all in one shot on my camera. Magnificent also.
Back at the hotel, I tried the wifi connection in Sails in the Desert (the poshest hotel at the resort and managed to post the blog, but for some reason could not access our email, so although I could see there were messages there, I couldn’t open them. This was very frustrating, but I was happy to be in the air con as it hit 42C outside. Shock, horror, when I went back to collect Sid from the Lost Camel pool, he was almost asleep IN THE SHADE, something unknown before, Sid in the shade, even too hot for him.
This evening brought a slight disappointment. I knew something in my careful research and planning would go wrong, and it did. Our Sounds of Silence dinner was cancelled due to a heavy desert thunder storm – hardly surprising with today’s temperatures, but rare nevertheless. Sounds of Silence was to have been a trip out to the sand dunes to see the sun set over Uluru while we sipped wine and ate canapés before going to dinner in the desert – just 70 places and I’d booked one of them back in October. It also featured on an Australian tourist advert I’d cut from the Sunday Times after I’d booked – it had this wonderful picture of a romantic dinner table set in the desert. The text read: We’ve pressed the linen, polished the silver and put out the best china, so where the heck are you? Well the answer is, we were there, where were you?
Not too much of a disappointment though as we booked a very nice dinner in the Sails in the Desert restaurant, which we thoroughly enjoyed. A great seafood buffet and meat carvery with a very nice pianist – so quite romantic after all!
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