Blogs from Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 14

(Day 578 on the road)"The heart. The soul. The centre." I am not quite convinced about the heart and the soul bit of Alice Springs' slogan that greeted me as I stepped off the train, but the part about the centre is certainly true: The city is located a very long way from anywhere else and sits approximately in the geographical centre of Australia. And with only 27.000 people living here, it must be one of the smallest cities that can claim that most people worldwide have probably heard of it. But of course it owes its fame entirely to nearby superstar Ayers Rock (still a six hour drive away though), the main if not the only reason most tourists come here. I had arrived in Alice Springs on a 24-hour train journey from Darwin on ... read more

So the next morning we were supposed to go the sunrise viewing of Uluru but the clouds were so low there was no point. Doc said he had never seen cloud on Uluru, so we were seeing something a bit different! We went to the base of Uluru to do the base walk all the way round. We started at 6.45am and completed the 9km walk. It doesn't look that big but it is! You can see how low the cloud was from my photo's - most of the rock was covered! But it had mostly lifted by the time we finished. After that we went to the cultural centre where we learnt more about Urluru, the Aboriginal stories and the management of the area. Kata Tjuta was next - the dome shaped rocks. After that ... read more

Day 120 - Uluru For whatever reason last night was a very restless / sleepless night, I was restless which meant Dar ended up sleepless which is never a good combination when you’ve got a big day ahead of you. The magic that is Uluru awaits us so we join the madding crowd travelling out there for sunrise. Whilst we’re still getting out of bed just past six o’clock, others are already whizzing out of the campsite! Sunrise is scheduled as 7:06 and it takes about 20 minutes to travel out to the viewing area so there’s no time for showering today! The gates to the park apparently open at 6am but we think that’s a myth and we’ll tell you why later! As it was we went through the gates with a queue in front ... read more

Day 119 - Alice Springs to Uluru It was still dark this morning when the alarm went off at silly o’clock. We’re still not convinced we’ve got the time right even though we’ve checked with a few people, these time changes really throw you out! We put the TV on to try and find an update on the cricket (forearmed is forewarned!) but we can’t find anything at all. One of the neighbours very kindly came round late last night with an un-opened container of milk saying that they were leaving first thing in the morning so it would be no good to them. We thought that was very kind but we actually left earlier than them this morning so we hope they have enough milk seeing how they gave us theirs! We’re on the road ... read more

Day 10 8/8/2009 Ayres Rock & the Ulga What a top day. We returned to the National Park intending to go directly back to Ayres Rock but we found that the climb was closed due to winds at the summit. Brian was pissed off because that was his goal for the day so as a second choice we headed for the Olgas as the walk was still open. Amazing rock formation - the big domes were made up of what looked like rocks imbedded into rocks. We chose to complete the Walpa Gorge, 2.6km 1hr return. Awesome mix of red rock, green bushes/shrubs a small water hole and rock path. After we completed the walk we drove around to the “Valley of the Winds” but decided to head back to Ayres Rock. The walk was open ... read more