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Published: February 24th 2011
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Up early and packing again. Limo picked us up at 08:15 and whisked us to Sydney Airport (Well sort off, we got a bit caught up in the rush hour traffic!). The car was another Audi Quattro limo, this time with complimentary morning papers and a bottle of water each.
Impression of Sydney: Hotel was brilliant; it was a really vibrant city with lots to do. The main focus is the Harbour area, and being as we were right on the doorstep, it made the stay even more enjoyable. Like most major cities, it is great to visit – but we wouldn’t want to live there!
My daughter Nat had warned me that Sydney Airport could be a bugger, with extremely long queues for check-in. They had obviously done quite a few modifications since she was there, Not only was the check-in automated, but also the baggage drop!!. The check –in went really smoothly, although neither Di nor I were entirely convinced that we would see ever see our luggage again.
The 3-hour flight was good. Di watched a movie, and I read with the occasional nap. We had to adjust our watches back 1 ½ hours – I
had thought that the time changes were over for a while but apparently not!
We arrived at Ayres Rock at around 11:50, and what’s more so did our luggage!! We were taken to our hotel by coach (Wot! No limo?)
We stayed at the “Sails in the Desert “ hotel; our room was not ready so we had to wait around for about 45 mins. Finally got into our room, and went for some lunch. We were due to be picked up at 14:50 for our first tour around Ayers Rock (Uluru) and an evening photo – shoot of the rock as the sun goes down.
The coach picked us up on time, the first stop was an Aborigine cultural centre, and here we learnt about some of the Aborigine legends and storylines. We also learned that although we had found the Australian people friendly, the Ayers Rock flies were even friendlier, but after awhile their friendliness began to get up your nose! – And into your mouth, and ears, and eyes!!! I had already purchased some nets to put over our heads, and it did not take long before we were willing to don the nets and look
like redundant beekeepers, as long as it got us away from the flies!!
The tour essentially took us around the rock visiting places of interest and Aborigine scared places. We were told about Aborigine culture and the geology of the rock. We saw Aborigine cave paintings, and we went on a couple of walks around the rock and visited water holes.
The last stop was to allocation where we could photograph Uluru. There were dozens of coaches there. The tour company had laid on wine and canapés, some people got so much into the wine that they missed the sunset on the Rock. We got talking to our tour guide who had been in Scotland last year and was telling us how much he had enjoyed it.
We got back to the hotel at around 19:30, had dinner and an early night as the coach will be picking us up at 05:15 tomorrow morning to go and see a desert sunrise and a guided tour of Kata Tjuta in the National Park
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