Alice? Alice? Who the F is Alice?!

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I was up at 6, Ali had been up for hours worrying that we'd sleep in and miss our flight to Alice. Funny thing being, we made it just in the nick of time 30 minutes before (internal flights here are as easy as catching a train). I'd asked ali how much stuff she was taking, as i wasn't sure what to pack. I asked if we were taking carry on baggage instead of check in. 'no way' she said ' you only allowed 5kg in carry on and I'll have that in make up alone' ha ha! We had breakfast on the Qantas flight ( I think I may add Qantas to my Christmas card list, the amount of time I've spent with them recently!) and chatted to pass the the 2 hours it took to get to nowhere. As we were coming into land, it really was nowhere, nill, zero, nothing! One of the first things we saw in the airport at Alice Springs was a poster displaying many faces with big bold letters above it declaring 'MISSING' we swiftly moved on, but I couldn't help thinking of that film 'Wolf Creek' that I'd seen some years earlier. Luckily we weren't driving after dark, and weren't planning to stop on the highway- not even if Brad Pitt was thumbing a lift, so I was confident our mugs wouldn't be joining the cast of thousand on that poster.
We collected our lonely luggage- the only 2 bags going round on the carousel, and picked up the hire car- a ford focus which I decided to name Pricilla, like the film, except it wasn't a camper van, and hopefully Ali and I didn't look too much like drag queens, though after the early start, 2 hour flight and 4 hour drive, I'm afraid you can't have that in writing.
They have this weird charge where with a hire car, you get so many KMs in the price. Anything after that, and you get charged something like an extra 30 odd cents per K. Now obviously we are in the middle of the bloody desert, so would have no option but to drive from place to place, unless we hijacked a camel instead, but that option didn't look hopeful. It wasn't a massive problem, but a bit annoying and a bit cheeky really, especially as this wasn't made clear at the time of booking.
Oh well. We got on the road, driving past the flying doctors aircraft hanger, and made our way into Alice for some provisions. We found a Woolworths ( the supermarket over here, not like the pic n mix one back at home) and got some food and drink. Now obviously, there were lots of aborigines around and about, and unfortunately they do have a distinct aroma of never being washed. I know this sounds a bit stuck up of me to say, and I do respect their way of life, but it wasn't the most pleasant thing to smell, and what with my weak gag reflex, I tried to hot foot it quick out of that shop to alleviate the watery sting that was in my eye. Just not something I was used to I guess.
Back on the road and we stopped to have our picture taken by the Alice sign before starting the 441KM  journey on the Stuart Highway. Not long into it, a piece of tumbleweed breezed across the road, I kid you not, how apt was that?! There really was nothing here. I can't explain what nothing looks like, but there really was nothing either side of the road, but desert, for miles, just nothing. I felt deep sympathy for whoever had the job of doing the road markings along here, they must have had a lonely old time. We did toy with the idea of playing I spy, but apart from R ( Road ) S ( Sky ) and T ( tree) there really wasn't much point, so we listened to the radio, and marveled in the nothingness that was around us.
I tell a lie actually, we did see a couple of dead dingos, and maybe the odd squashed roo- we couldn't tell, and rather randomly we passed a hill that had grazing camels on it (maybe a hijack was now an option?!) but after that. Back to nothing again. 
About 1/3rd of the way into our drive, we lost radio signal, so now we had nothing but the sound of white noise and Tarmac to keep us company. Before we turned right onto lasseters highway, we stopped at one of the very few places along the route- Erldunda, a place I'm not confident would be on google street map? Maybe?! Anyway, we got some fuel, and good thinking Ali- bought a cd, 'School Disco' 4 discs of old cheesy hits- perfect to pass the time along the second leg. It was my turn to drive, and it wasn't too bad, apart from nearly missing the one and only turning 10 seconds into it.
After more of nothing, we passed Mt Eboneezer, and could see Mt Conner in the distance, that looked very much like Uluru- apparently lots of people make this mistake- but I can't really describe, just how amazing it was when you finally get to see it for the first time. Uluru. Standing tall on the horizon. At last we'd seen something after 4 hours of all that nothing.
We reached Ayres Rock resort and booked into our hotel, which was lovely. Even better, we managed to get a place booked on the sounds of silence dinner that we'd read so many good things about, and thought we'd miss out on. We ummed and arghed about what walks to do, and didn't know if we should just do it ourselves, but we settled on one tour that takes you out there for sunrise and breakfast, before a 9km walk around the base. (after all this good living- my wobbly thighs were calling out for a bit of exercise as well)
We found a nice spot around the pool, and had a mojito, before heading off to a viewing point to watch the sunset. The rock looked lovely as dusk was drawing in, and there were loads of Chinese people with cameras and tripods going nuts for it. ali and I sat chatting, looking at the rock, when a guy tapped us on the shoulder and suggested we might like to look in the other direction. Lucky he did or else we would have been sat, rabbiting on and missed one of the most beautiful skies I have seen. I won't try to describe it, but will hopefully upload a picture. Even then it won't do it justice, and it was another one of those 'wow, I am so lucky to see this' moments. By now the chinese people had buggered off and missed the best bit, and we didn't want to be alone with this other 1 guy on the hill, wrong of us maybe, but again- watch wolf creek and you'd have thought the same.
Back at the room, we chilled out with a glass of wine before dinner at the restaurant, of Thai curry for me and a Salad for Ali, both of which were big portions, and both delicious ( I know- food again- sorry!) with an early rise tomorrow, we retired to bed at the pitiful time of 9pm, although this was by now, starting to be a bit of a trend for me. It wasn't too cold, but we put the heating on- a novelty for ali as she hasn't done this since she left the UK last October.
Within about 10 minutes I was fast asleep, all tucked up in bed, under a starry outback sky. What a lucky girl indeed.
 

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