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Published: September 3rd 2005
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sooo sooo long since i last wrote anything! i think i'll split these entries so that they are a little more readable 😊
oooh, but before i start, all of my entries now have photos in, just so ya know!
righty, lets get on then!
had the BEST time!!!!!!!!!! it really was the most amazing experience and i came away from it all with lots of lovely new friends which is always nice 😊
got picked up at 6.00am saturday morning (eep!!) and we headed up to anzac hill, a hill (obviously 😊) which overlooks alice springs. from there we watched the sunrise and then headed off on our ickle road trip 😊 at this point there was only 1/2 of the group - the rest we were picking up from yulara (the resort at uluru). there was claire from london (who i got on really super well with), thomas from austria (who didn't actually talk the whole weekend...), vicky and laura from england somewhere (total pain in the arse the both of them, all they did was whinge the whole weekend) and phil our ozzie tour guide (think steve irwin the crocodile hunter. but with camels. all
uluru
my first view of that oh so famous rock :) will become clear later...)
we stopped at a camel farm just outside of alice springs and i went for a camel ride! yay! it was super fun! although in all the photos i look a tad scared and not too impressed 😊 hehe. but yeah, twas brillliant! and was glad that i was wearing a good bra - would have ended up with two black eyes otherwise, camel rides are bumpy as hell!!!!!!
managed to stay awake for the whole drive which i think had something to do with being on the lookout for kangaroos 😊 we did see one, but it was roadkill, so that totally doesn't count. we did however see many many camels, which, i didn't know are really common in australia... (apparently when the white man introduced the horse as a means of transportation all of the afghans let their camels go free. now there are about 700,000 of them roaming around oz!)
we had to stop to collect firewood and i think nearly everyone sustained injury at this point!! i think i got off relatively lightly with my splinter (which i didn't manage to get out till the next day, but that's
me at uluru
not quite the red rock, blue skies, short and strappy top shot i was hoping for... :) another story... 😊)
when we got to our campsite in yulara (nearly 5 hours later :s) we picked up the rest of the group - pavel from the czech republic (who also opted for silence for most of the weekend) and polly, sue and barbara all from oz (and all totally lovely!) - and headed off for uluru 😊
slight hitch however - by this point it was of course absolutely pouring with rain, which almost never happens, and because it almost never happens, had anyone come prepared with waterproofs and umbrellas? ummmm, no. so instead, there was now a group of 10 of us wearing bin bag with holes cut in for head and arms. brilliant stuff! don't think i've laughed so hard in the longest time!!!!! don't think i'll be forgetting my trip to uluru in a hurry!!!!!! so off we all traipse around the rock (laura and vicky whinging away) looking glorious in our oh so fashionable black bin bags 😊 but all was not lost - apparently it is an uber rare sight to see water running off the rock and many will never experience it. it was absoultely amazing. instead of this bright
oh the hilarity!!
i think i could start a trend, hehe!! red rock that we all know from picture postcard australia, there was this huge grey monolith with hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls running down it. it's not often that i'm lost words, but this was most definitely one of those times...
you really have no concept of how huge and to be honest quite scary uluru is until you see it up close. we walked about 8km which still isn't the whole of the base, and because it was raining, the walk to the top of the rock was closed (not that i would have done it anyway - a) its way too steep and dangerous (34 people have died doing it) and b) the aboriginies ask you not to as it is a sacred place for them, likening it to running through a mosque at prayer time or sitting atop the altar in a church. you can kinda see their point!)
wonderful stuff - as soon as we finished the walk it stopped raining 😊 hehe. but still, it was an amazing experience and i wouldn't have changed it for the world. (that and i've learnt that whinging is totally unbecomming! 😉 (as pointed at by mr
the main waterhole at uluru
complete with beautiful cascading waterfall :) bryson...))
by this point it was actually getting quite late so we headed back to camp to watch the sunset over uluru. which was breath-taking. it honestly was. i can't even begin to describe. the rock had actually begun to dry out and the sky had cleared, so we saw the famous "changing colours" of the rock. photos really don't even begin to do it justice.
dinner was cooked on the campfire, champagne was drunk by all and phil made tradition bush bread called damper (something along the lines of a huge scone). then, possibly the best part, off to bed in our traditional ozzie swags. think big thick insulated water proof sleeping bags. outside. no tent required. literally, we slept under the stars 😊 and wow. i have never seen so many stars and doubt that i ever will again. the sky was amazingly clear and i can't find the words to describe to you all what it felt like to fall alseep looking at thousands and thousand of stars in a clear outback sky.
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