Close Encounters with an Angry Dutchman

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So today we’ll be heading 450 kms south-west to Uluṟu, the iconic monolith formerly known as Ayers Rock.

It’s Mother’s Day, so I went out dutifully last night and bought my beloved a box of chocolates. I then wished her a happy Mother’s Day and espoused her virtues on our extended family chat … well I thought it was Mother’s Day … until someone pointed out that I was a week early. I hope we can still eat the chocolates.

We’re up at the crack of dawn for an early getaway … well that was the plan until we notice that one of our tyres appears to be more than a tad on the flat side. Hmmm. But no worries, we’ve got a spare, and a jack, and a wheel brace, so we’ll be on our way in no time. But what’s this sticker on the “spare”; it seems it’s not really a spare at all in the traditional sense of the word; it’s not recommended to be driven on for more than a few kilometres, which we suspect is probably a few less than the 450 we’ve got in front of us …. and at no more than 80 kms per hour. Huh? OK, so one step at a time; let’s change it and see where we go from there. So why doesn’t the wheel brace seem to fit the wheel nuts? It’s close, but no cigar. This is not good.

So what’s next, well that would be a quick call to AANT, the Automobile Association of the Northern Territory; I’m sure they’ll come our rescue. An hour or so later and up turns an angry Dutchman. He takes one look at our errant tyre and launches into an expletive laden tirade about the wheel nuts. It seems they’re so notoriously difficult to remove that they’ve been the subject of court cases against Ford in the US (where else). He does eventually manage to pry them loose between tirades and install the loosely termed “spare”, but we then learn that he’s got a sense of humour after all, albeit a perverse one; he gets the giggles when we ask him if that’s going to get us to Uluṟu … which I’m taking to mean “no” as the answer to the original question. He says it’s Sunday, so there’s no one open to repair the puncture, and it seems it’s a long weekend up here so they’ll be no one open tomorrow either. Right. Good. Well actually not good, not even a little bit good. I can feel all those expensive pre-booked non-refundable Uluṟu tours and accommodation slipping between our fingers as he chuckles.

But wait, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Angry Dutchman says he’ll call “someone” to see if they might be willing to fix our puncture … at short notice … in the middle of a long weekend. He says the “someone” will swear and curse at him for even asking, and in the unlikely event of him agreeing will charge us an arm and a leg for the privilege, and snarl at us continuously as he works. We wait anxiously to learn our fate. It’s a miracle; “someone” will help … well not really just any “someone” ... it seems he’s actually angry Dutchman’s son. We tiptoe nervously into the workshop and await another seemingly inevitable expletive laden tirade. But no, it seems that in this case the apple has fallen a long way from the tree. Angry Dutchman junior is an extremely pleasant and helpful young man, who quickly completes the repair, charges us a pittance, and sends us happily on our way. Disaster averted, and faith in human nature restored.

We stop at Macca’s for a coffee fix. There’s a group of indigenous men here, as well as several non-indigenous family groups, and I don’t think I’m imagining a slight sense of tension. The non-indigenous folk look a bit distrustful of the indigenous men, and the latter seem to sense that the others are looking down their noses at them and making them feel like second class citizens. From what we’ve seen here in Alice Springs, indigenous and non-indigenous groups seem to keep very much to themselves generally, with very little mixing. All very sad.

We stop for lunch at the largest “town” along the route, the thriving metropolis of Erldunda, population 25. They’ve got a flock of cute looking emus here in a large fenced enclosure, next to the Erldunda Desert Oaks Resort. I think “resort” might possibly be overstating the case just a tad. Anyway, we’ll get to find out first hand on the way back; we’ll be staying here overnight to break up the journey home. I hope we can cope with the luxury.

We pass the stunning Mount Conner, a massive 300 metre high mesa. We read that it’s often referred to as Fuluru due to tourists confusing it with the real Uluṟu.

We arrive at the Ayers Rock Resort and immediately feel like we’ve been transported onto a different planet to the one we’ve just left - a string of fancy up-market hotels - we haven’t seen any of those since we left Melbourne - and people, lots of people. We scarcely saw a car in the 260 kms after we turned off the main highway, but this place is crawling with tourists, entire bus loads of them, and seemingly from all parts of the globe. Where did they all come from? Most of them certainly didn’t drive here, so I guess they must have flown …. into that tiny looking airport? If that wasn’t incongruous enough, I’d be surprised if more than a tiny proportion of the staff here were Australian, and most have difficult to understand accents. This feels really strange, given we’re right slap bang in the empty middle of our massive homeland, and little more than stone’s thrown from probably its most iconic landmark.

I leave Issy resting and head out to watch the sunset in front of the great monolith. Oh boy. It is an absolutely stunning vista, a real sight for sore eyes. It is so big and impressive. And it’s true what they say, the colours change dramatically in the few minutes it takes the sun to finally dip below the horizon. I get goosebumps.

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