Okay, so we could sort of see Ayers Rock when we arrived, and my Dad got all emotional about it, but first we had to move into our accommodation. Now, hotels in Uluru are expensive. The cheapest place was the one we got, seeing as I was on a budget, and even then it was the same price as the pricier hotels we'd been staying in. I suppose they figure you either pay the money and sleep there or you try and sleep in the National Park and get arrested. The cheaper place, The Outback Pioneer Lodge, is actually the most fun, and for a travelling group of 4 it's excellent and the rooms hold 4 people. It's basically a hostel, which confused my Dad when we arrived:
"How do you change with strangers in the room? Where's the bathroom? You're taking the top bunk."
The hotel/hostel has small rooms with 2 bunk beds, and a separate shower/toilet building on the complex. Not a problem during the hotter months, very much a problem in July when it's absolutely freezing in the mornings and evenings and you're trying to whip in and out of your clothing in your shower cubicle. We had the room to ourselves the first night which was great, and the second night the two Canadians who joined us went to sleep before we'd even come back from dinner. Unfortunately the guy snored. I wish doctors would cure that.
So, we arrived and moved in and after a quick lunch, we had our first tour to watch the sunset. Whatever tour you book, a coach comes round all the hotels to collect everyone whose booked it and then drives off for the tour. Our tour bus took us to the designated Sunset watching area. It may be worth considering the time of year you go to Ayers Rock, because for us in July the position of the sun meant that the sunsets were the most spectacular. At the opposite time of year, the sunrises are better.
Our tour put out some snacks and drinks and gave us camping seats, and we joined the other tours to watch the sunset. It really was amazing, the red was so vibrant and if you take a photo every 5 minutes the Rock is a slightly different colour. Definitely a good idea to bring your tripod. Dad was having fun practising with all the buttons on his camera to find the best settings and positioned the moon in different places on the shot. I don't know, I don't have the camera or the knowledge so I can't explain. But at least he was amused. One thing I will say is that for the sunset tour, unless you're doing the dinner after, you might as well skip doing it as a tour and just drive there on your own. There's no need to pay $50 each, unless you haven't got a car, because there's no commentary or anything different. I'll explain later.
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| At its brightest |
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| When the sun was below the horizon |
The next morning we got up super early to go on our sunrise tour. Now, at this point I shall recommend doing the Sunrise Highlights tour. There are many tour options available, and it will depend on how far you want to walk as well. We didn't want to do a whole lot of walking, some tours offer a base walk which is quite a big thing. Our tour was small, only a minibus full of people, and it was great. Pip, our guide, picked us up and took us past the sunrise viewing area to a layby a little further in. It meant we were on our own without all the tour groups standing around us, and he provided tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and breakfast cereals. It was damn cold. I mean it, all of me was cold but my feet were agonisingly freezing. They alternated between being painful and numb. That was my only issue with the trip. During the day it wasn't boiling, and was actually rather pleasant, but in July the nights and mornings are very cold.
Anyway, we watched the sunrise, and then we packed up and drove to the Rock itself. The great thing was that because we weren't at the viewing area with the other tours and were further along, we reached the Rock before any of the other tours and were able to look at it and have our talk from Pip without anyone else around, and get in some good pictures. Pip was fantastic, and told us really interested Aboriginal stories. He showed us Aboriginal art on the walls, and explained what a few of the symbols meant, but said that the history was very sacred and Aboriginals won't tell them everything. He also pointed out where there used to be art, but previous generations of tour guides had thrown water on the paintings to make the colours more vibrant for older cameras, and had washed most of it away.
He explained some of the stories they knew from the Aboriginals that explained what particular cracks in the Rock meant. He showed us the watering hole, where, despite the Rock being in the middle of the desert, the water has never run dry. When he brought us back to the bus and we drove around the base, he told us more stories of other Rock formations we could see, and told us where there was a sacred place for Aboriginals, which we're not allowed to take photos of (he had to tell on man off who was glued to his camera).
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| Our tour guide, Pip, who was awesome |
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| Me, not climbing Ayers Rock |
Also, a new tour company who wanted to establish themselves at Ayers Rock stencilled their website address on top of the Rock to get aerial shots from a helicopter for brochures. Well, drawing on the Rock is completely illegal, for obvious reasons, and they went to court. If a small company, they would have to pay a fine that could completely bankrupt them, and if they were a big company, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So, let all those stories be a warning to you.
While the sunset tour was not really necessary to purchase, I really felt that the Sunrise Highlights tour was worth every penny. It was so interesting, and Pip was so knowledgeable. It is a completely different experience to go to Ayers Rock and really find out about it's history and the myths and legends that surround it, rather than just staring at it through a camera lens.
When we got back to the hotel again, Dad left for the airport to collect a hire car, and then we made our own way to Kata Tjuta. A guided tour of that would also have been really interesting, I'm sure, but I had still been mindful of my budget, and so decided not to book one. We parked right up near it and walked as far as the Valley of the Winds, although they have much longer walks available for free too. Kata Tjuta is also pretty spectacular as a natural structure. These two rocks, Kata Tjuta and Ayers Rock, just appear on the horizon of otherwise completely flat land. It's so strange.
When we drove back, it was getting close to sunset, so we decided to go again and watch the sunset on Ayers Rock ourselves. This is why I feel like booking a tour is not necessary if you have or hire a car. It's easy to do yourself, you go to a different area for independent people wanting to watch the sunset, and it's just as spectacular. Actually it was even more spectacular for us. I'm not sure if it was the location or that particular day but the colour of the Rock was just unbelievable, which I hope you can see in the photo.
That night we had another BBQ, because it was just so much, fun, and then went to bed. The next day we were going to get a plane back to Sydney, but first we went to the Ayers Rock Resort village to look around the shops, and watch the free boomerang throwing tutorials. They also have Aboriginal dancing a lunchtimes, although we missed it both days.
As Dad said, Ayers Rock was really a tick in the box, and I'm so glad I did it. Dad said it was on his bucket list, so he was thrilled to have seen it. It was quite the contrast, leaving Ayers Rock and the desert and arriving again in a bustling city which was so familiar to me, yet which felt different because I was no longer living there with my friends and I was showing Dad all the things he remembered from visiting years earlier and some new things.
Sydney is really special to me. It did take a while to
grow on me, which I wasn't expecting as I thought I'd just love it
straight away, but it was a different place than I thought it would be
from programmes and pictures I'd seen. In a way I found my own Sydney,
and I loved that. I met up with Jee Eun, Saki, and Olina
again and I'd missed them loads. We went out to Max Brenner which would
be my last time *sob* and I gave them little trinkets I'd bought on my
travels. I went again to see Mrs Macqaurie's chair and the Opera House, and Westfields
and Darling Harbour, and Paddy's Market and China Town. I showed my Dad
where I lived before with the girls and we took my route to work so
that he could also see where I'd worked at the University of Sydney. I
took him inside and introduced him to my ex-colleagues who had received
my postcard. I took him to my favourite spot to look at the city, which
is behind the swimming pool on the campus if you are there or ever go
there and want to take a look. |
| Dad's favourite cup of coffee |
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| Where I worked while At Sydney University |
I was genuinely sad to leave, as I always am when I've gone somewhere exciting. I'm never really sad to leave England, maybe because I keep coming back to it. But who knows when I will visit Australia again. We managed to get me on the same flight as my Dad (we were supposed to leave on different days), and we didn't tell my Mum that I was coming home early (although we had to tell me sister so that she could make sure Mum came to pick us up). The flight was very long. On the way to Australia I'd broken it up with a week in Hong Kong, but this time we just got our connecting flight and moved on. I watched lots of movies as I always do, asked for all the extra snacks we were allowed because I love aeroplane food, and then when we landed I had horrifically swollen ankles which completely freaked me out, having never had that particular problem before. I temporarily forgot about my ankles when I snuck up behind my Mum and said hello for this first time in over 5 months. She was shaking so hard (not from fright, I didn't shout boo) that my Dad had to drive us home. And then after I'd dished out all my presents (turns out I bought a lot for my sister. As in a lot. I'm going to need to pay attention next time as she didn't even by me a birthday present) and had a good chat about everything, I fell asleep on the couch. I vaguely remember when my Mum woke me up that I tried to get to my bedroom through the garden patio doors, and then didn't know what do when she put pyjamas in my hands, but finally I was in bed, in England, asleep.
I just want to thank Australia in general. And all the people that I met within it, who talked to me on planes when I was on my own, who took me places I wouldn't have been able to go by myself, who chatted with me as if no time had past even though we'd been apart for almost 20 years, who took me to the beach at night which I'd never have done myself, who made me laugh so hard about boys like I was 13 again. And to thank my Dad, for joining me on the other side of the world when I was really starting to find that travelling alone was very difficult and lonely, and encouraged me to spend a little bit more than my spendthrift ways wanted me to in order to have the best 5 months ever (although the money would definitely be useful now I'm trying to buy a car....).
And also to you, whether you're a friend of mine reading this or you were just interested in a pommie's adventures. It was nice to have people interested in what I was doing. I hope you continue to read on, now that I am continuing this blog as a Pommie now living in America. I rejected the idea of renaming this The Limey Diaries, because I don't think it's quite as catchy, or the term quite as well known.
Anyway, welcome to my new series:
The Pommie Diaries: Abroad
TTFN!
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