I Saw Uluru and Dim Sum

---

July 13, 2006

The rain was coming down, hard enough to wake me up as though I heard a gunshot. I was definitely psyched to run over to the mountain to see the falls, and let me tell you that I wasn’t disappointed.
As I approached the ranger station with my park pass, I asked what the chances were of seeing the waterfalls, “ah, they need to have a lot of rain on the rock, not just in the area, and when the rain stops, the waterfalls stop shortly after.”
I put my hand out the window, no rain, not for a few minutes. I slammed the clutch down and into gear, top gun style, and blasted over to the rock.
By the time I arrived, it was pissing rain and the wind was blowing hard. This was a real storm. At first I didn’t notice the waterfalls, I was a little worried. And then BAM! I saw a couple! WOW! Amazing.
I drove over to the parking lot that I first arrived at a few days earlier. The entire view was waterfalls. From one side of the rock to the other, there were as many different waterfalls as there was curves in the mountain. I could have easily counted 12 at any given point. All spectacular. I jumped out of the car and felt the wind throw me back. I really didn’t care what the weather wanted to do, I was going for that walk.
Passing through the same path as before, but this time the rock was saturated and shiny and instead of black water marks were waterfalls. One thing that I noticed was that even at the gorge, the highest drop waterfall at least a couple hundred feet (I’m being very conservative), the water fell docile- it was not overly loud or powerful…just a calm fall, and a quiet landing into the drinking pond.
I drove around the rock so that I could see each fall. It was really like I would imagine driving on another planet…although even in Gene Roddenbury’s best Star Trek town renderings he never came close to this one!
From there, off to the airport. Fair enough, I’ve seen uluru in all its glory and even in ways that most people will never see. I’m good.
The flight was quick, I think I’m desensitized ever since the big flight over the pacific.
I enjoyed the night by walking around Chinatown and grabbing a Kebab, a Boba drink, and then some Dim Sum at a restaurant. Barely able to walk, I tried to roll myself into bed.

---