Blogs from Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Given Brooksie's hopeless performance navigating yesterday he has been relegated to the back seat whilst Wilko's driving. We headed out to Lake Bennett which actually has water, checked out a great desert skink habitat but we still aren't sure which word the great refers to (skink, desert or habitat) in any event we didn't see any. Brooksie correctly identified camel poo, but personally I would have just looked at it. We were lucky enough to spot a Black Titted Plover and we were kind enough to post our observations on the black board at Newhaven complete with Lat and Long coordinates. On the way to the Namtjira Highway we passed through the aboriginal settlement of Papunya, which had many similarities of other settlements, wrecked cars, stray dogs, litter and aboriginals but surprisingly no mobile coverage. Once ... read more

Trying to put myself together for a 5:30 AM wake up after the glorious Sounds of Silence Dinner was no easy feat. I was able to take a quick splash in the shower, throw some clothes on and managed to look halfway presentable. Remember now, desert presentable is not the same as city presentable, so it wasn’t that difficult. Herded onto a bus, our large group headed out to see the sunrise at Uluru. The cool morning air felt nice as I walked down the path to find my perfect spot. In front was Uluru towering over everything. Behind were the Kata Tjutas, slumbering quietly in the distance. The morning light was changing quickly and as fast as throngs of tourists could arrive. Snapping pictures a mile a minute, I enjoyed the phenomena of a sunrise. ... read more

G'day from Australia - home for the next couple of months! Having been on the road for over 6 months now, and having stayed in over 100 different campsites / hostels / guesthouses / overnight buses / airplanes, we are taking a break from the backpacks and embracing the campervan lifestyle. Our very own home on wheels! Landing into Darwin we were expecting the bright lights of a major Australian city. We quickly found that Ennis is 10 times busier! Still given that we had no preparation done for our road trip, a couple of days in Darwin provided us with the perfect opportunity to get our holiday plans in order. We collected our campervan, named Stewie (because the road from Darwin to Adeliade is called the Stuart Highway, and because Mau is hoping we get ... read more

It is our third night here in Yalara, the resort town just outside the Uluru/Kata Tjuta National Park. We will be moving on from here sometime tomorrow afternoon and as I will probably lose access to the internet from then until we reach Alice Springs, I have just spent the last four or so hours working through my photos so that I can publish another blog before we go. My first comment is to explain the title of this blog ... this "dead" center of Australia is lush, vibrant, green, gold and beautiful at the moment following on two seasons of very good rain. It is almost rare to see a large expanse of red dirt ... its there, the red dirt, you just need to look under all the growth. We have just had two ... read more

We decided on a quick trip to Uluru to celebrate Kevin's birthday. He had never been there and I had not been since I was in Year 12 - a lifetime ago. We booked a package deal that included accommodation at Sails in the Desert, a Field of Lights tour and the Sounds of Silence dinner. We left behind the impending rain in Canberra and arrived in Uluru via Melbourne to warmth and sunshine and our first view of the rock from the air. Collected by bus and taken to the hotel. Too early for check-in so left our bags and decided on a quick walk to the town square where we discovered a supermarket, post office, tour booking office, souvenir shops and a few eateries. All very convenient. We decided to have lunch to fill ... read more