Blogs from Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 34

July 13, 2006 The rain was coming down, hard enough to wake me up as though I heard a gunshot. I was definitely psyched to run over to the mountain to see the falls, and let me tell you that I wasn’t disappointed. As I approached the ranger station with my park pass, I asked what the chances were of seeing the waterfalls, “ah, they need to have a lot of rain on the rock, not just in the area, and when the rain stops, the waterfalls stop shortly after.” I put my hand out the window, no rain, not for a few minutes. I slammed the clutch down and into gear, top gun style, and blasted over to the rock. By the time I arrived, it was pissing rain and the wind was blowing hard. ... read more

What I am about to write is not a type-o. Wake up alarm at 5:30am. It’s completely dark outside, it’s almost freezing- literally- I crawled off the top bunk, quiet not to wake the others who wouldn’t need to wake up for another five hours, and met my 4WD bus in the car park. Basically felt like I was being shipped off somewhere to be cooked, but then I remembered that I was in Ayers Rock and the only cookin’ around here is roo and wallaby- roo of which I ate last night… it was really nice, too! We whipped left and were jolted onto a dirt road. Immediately, I felt like a world rally driver flying through the desert on a nighttime rally course. Really, the driver didn’t seem to be the racer type- short, ... read more

With a blow on my Digeridoo - here we are at Ayres' rock - or Uluru in the local tongue. Apparently they don't use the Digeridoo in the North - but the rock is pretty amazing! It's a very weird (and a very Red) place. They got orgainised with tourism in 1984 - flattened the old hotels and built a new airport and resort outside the national park. As a result - it's nice, but expensive. They've got 4 or 5 different hotels catering to different bugets - but I think probably all run by the same central company - it's well laid out and there's a supermarket and a free shuttle bus around the resort... Any number of people will sell you a tour around either Uluru or Kata Juta which are both about 20/30 ... read more

This one is called Cock in a Frock Part II because Part 1 got so many hits just because of the title. Yes, there is a text blog for this one but I haven't gotten around to typing it up. I thought I would publish the photos anyway because isn't that what everyone wants anyway?... read more

We motored on, (it's a fair distance from Alice to Uluru you know!), and finally arrived for our days walk around King's Canyon, taking in the Lost City domes, the Garden Of Eden and the Winds walk. I had had high hopes for this place as people had told me it rivals Uluru in 'spectacularness'. The 'difficult' 3 hour walk was a piece of piss and 'Heart Attack Hill' a mere Hobbit hole of a mound. Though the canyon itelf was pretty large and contained some fantastic geology, I wasn't all that impressed. Driving, post-walk, we reached our destination: Ylara 'Resort'. It's a funny place, a bit like the Milton Keynes out of town car park just off the M1, built soley as accomodation for the Uluru sightseers and hostpitality workers. During the drive the whole ... read more