Blogs from Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania

Our next little trip was out to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, which most of you probably know as Ayer's Rock. It's in the middle of the Australian Outback, technically considered "semi-arid" and not desert. It's so far away from any other towns- the nearest "city" is 1,200 kilometers away and the main road west is a dirt road for thousands of miles. They've actually had above average rainfall for a few years, so there is a now a lot of green vegetation- including plants and animals that haven't been seen in the area for decades or maybe ever. That all said, it is a very bizarre place. We flew into a tiny airport close to Ayer's Rock/Uluru, and a shuttle took us to our hotel, which is actually part of a very big resort. It's so ... read more

Day 120, 09/01/12 Up at 4:15am!! It was still dark but it was worth it as we watched the sunrise over Uluru whilst eating our breakfast. We did the Base walk which was pretty long and we did get a bit wet because of the rain but it soon cleared up and we were fine. The Base walk is basically a walk around the whole rock and is about 7km's which is strange because the whole perimiter of the rock is about 9.5kms and it is 350m high (I told you it was huge) but the walk was really nice and you really don't realise how big the rock is until you walk around it. We learnt a few more little stories and some parts of the rock you are not allowed to photograph because it ... read more

Uluru has been deemed sacred for thousands of years by the Anangu, the Aboriginal people in the red centre of Australia. Many spiritual vortices emanate a solid resonance that strongly grounds you with the red, first chakra hues, ubiquitous in the rock and dirt. The grounding force roots you so deeply to the land, that you feel the connection to an ancient place in time and space. The geological & spiritual dimensions are infinite, with multiple ways to experience this iconic landmark. To allow myself time to integrate the intensity of experiences that awaited me, I reserved 4 nights & 3 days at a hostel in Yulara, a community for visitors at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. After a 6-hour bus ride from Alice Springs, I got on the shuttle to spend the afternoon & sunset at ... read more

I was up early to be picked up by my tour. I met Florent and Stephanie at my hostel who were coming on the same tour and the 3 of us hit it off straight away. Florent is from France and Stephanie is from Germany. We had an interesting mix of people in group. Some older people and a few younger ones. We started heading out of Alice towards Uluru. We stopped to see "fooluru" but it was too smokey to see it. Fooluru is another big rock in the desert that looks similar to Uluru from one side and when they first opened up Uluru as a tourist thing people would get confused and think this place was Uluru and take their pictures and turn back to Alice Springs. It was so smokey because of ... read more

JUMPING IN THE RED CENTRE Where do you take your son when he returns on a November holiday to Oz from two & a half years in freezing cold Canada...pursuing a Diploma in Snowboarding...Toronto, Whistler and Vancouver? ...into the desert of course...why didn't that come immediately to mind?...lets take him to the Red Centre. And of course it has nothing to do with this decision...but we can acclimatise for our trip to Timbuktu...and the Festival au Desert in the Sahara...and try out my new camera...and watch us beat the Poms in the cricket...sounds better than taking him to a tropical island! After ten years of drought which broke a couple of years ago with flooding in Queensland that renewed the inland rivers...even filled the salt expance of Lake Eyre in South Australia...we were in for a ... read more

31 May - 5 June 2011 You can't go to the Red Centre without doing the three major tourist attractions and they certainly didn't disappoint! We stayed 3 nights at Kings Canyon which allowed us to do the short walk into the base of the canyon and also the walk to Kathleen Springs one day and then the 6km walk around the perimeter of the canyon the following day. The drive to Kings Canyon was an interesting one as we thought we were heading into a huge dust storm but later realised it was backburning on a very large scale. We couldn't turn around because of distances, etc so we were feeling a little anxious for a short time. We have noticed since being in the N.T. that the backburning takes place on a large scale ... read more