The Big Rock's!

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ULURU & KATA TJUTA

ULURU

Well they do say that the early bird catches the worm! So second day in a row it is a 5.30am start! The early start consists of us getting into the bus and go back to sleep for an hour whist Spud drives us to Uluru for sunrise. Spud wakes us up on the entry to the National Park this morning with the theme from the A-Team! We all get given our own tickets for the National Park that we need to wave from the window every time we enter!

The talk on the bus turns to the snorer last night! What a noise he made! Well Charlotte just held her hands up and admitted it must be her (she had no choice as we were all to be together for a week anyway!), but did mention that the Indonesian man had also been snoring. So they decided it must have been him and would do a recount tonight! Will she make it through the night?

We come up to the Sunrise point and as we pull up in the car park we see hundreds of other tour companies and buses there. A lot of them are having breakfast there. We arrive at just the right time and run around taking loads of photos. Luckily we had the fore sight to grab our fly nets as we were leaving the bus because as the sun rose, the fly’s woke up!

After grabbing ‘The shot’ we jumped back into the bus ready for our two hour base walk. Luckily as we started it just after sunrise it did not have the unbearable heat of yesterday. It was a flat self guided walk. No one chose to do the climb, which was quite lucky as it was closed anyway because of the heat. The walk was very nice.

We respected the Anangu people and did not take pictures of there sacred spots around the base. The walk was a 10.4 km loop where got to see some lovely patterns in the rock and vegetation. Towards the end we passed by a couple of caves where there were some basic cave paintings, past the first car park, through a shaded area and onto the second car park, where the climb ascended from! My god, when we saw it we were all rather glad we did not chose to attempt it. It looked like a rock climb, not a walk!

We headed over to the bus and caught up with the rest of the group, filled up our water and gobbled down the cake that was on offer from Spud! Fruit cake has never tasted so good. We certainly deserved it! We waited for everyone to arrive and no we were not the last Charlotte Cheers. Most of the others arrive but we are still awaiting the arrival of the Indonesian couple are no where to be seen!

Eventually we get the news that they made it to the first car park which is where they thought we were meeting and waited there! They then panicked when they did not see anyone else from the group at the allotted time, so pressed the emergency ranger button (there is always one!). Once the ranges stepped down the helicopter, rescue dogs and man hunt team , then finished laughing they let us know. We started driving around to pick them up, but they had started walking to us. Luckily Charlotte spots them, so we pull over and pick them up.

KATA TJUTA
Next stop Kata Tjuta or as we know them ’The Olgas’, it is starting to get a little warm as we set out for the 2.6km return Walpa Gorge walk. Spud teaches us about the geology of the area on this walk which is fasinating. All about how the area was formed and how it developed over the years. We won’t bore you with it now, but do ask us on our return and we will happily tell you all about it.

After the walk we have a little snooze on the return to camp where we choppa, choppa some lunch and say a sad farewell to the half of the group who were only on the 2 day tour.

ULURU

We head back to the big rock this afternoon to finish off the last part of the walk with Spud where he tells us all about the rock. The cave paintings, apparently the people here were so busy going about the business of hunting for food, they did not really have the time to sit around cave painting like the people of the North. Apparently Toni, Uelli, Katie, Dorte & her friend, who have been with Spud since the inception of the tour, saw some great paintings near Darwin.

Also Spud sent the boy’s off and told us about women’s business (an area used for birthing), whilst he told them about Man’s business, which was about how them men would find a watering hole when looking for food and count the Emu (or whatever animal) in, then count them out and kill the last one because otherwise you scare them all off from drinking there again! But if the girls ask we were talking football and spitting and stuff!

There was much talk of men’s business and women’s business over this journey. The reasoning behind this was not to be sexist or secretive about things but in this area especially life was hard and each sex had so much to do to survive that they had no time to be wondering what the other sex is up to. There lives depended on this.

After walking off our lunch we go to the Cultural centre to learn more of the traditional owners the Anangu people. We had a little chat with Toni over a cooling glass of sprit & an ice cream. She is a lovely girl of about 22, she teaches problem children at home and has taken a year off to travel Oz and also do some work here in a school. She told us that she came out with Oz into, which set’s you up to begin your journey and work while you are here. I think you told us about them Caroline & Murray?

We enquired about Katie as she seemed very quiet and we were sure she had been crying a few times! It turns out that she is a quiet and shy German girl that had been planning this trip for ages with her boyfriend, then he up’s and leaves her just before they are due to fly out. He also keep’s texting her which ends up confusing her. Also although her written English is great she struggles a bit with the oral, which does not help matters as I am sure she feels a little isolated.

We head back to camp and go for a cooling swim whilst Spud prepares dinner for us. The closest camp pool is closed, so Spud dropped us up to the resort pool, which we all dived into. After over hearing our story of Cairn’s and the Wood duck backers (people making out!) Toni regales us of her first couple of weeks in Oz. Apparently she arrived with Oz intro and was put into a 12 man mixed dorm and over the Xmas period there were more like 24 people in the room, doing allsorts. Toni left and stayed with a friend in the Blue Mountains for a couple of days. On contacting the hostel to say she is not coming back, she finds out that she was put into what is locally referred to as the ‘Orgy room’. They asked her back and put her in a much nicer (hidden) and smaller female only dorm for the remainder of her stay.

Spud gave us instructions on getting the bus back, but when the time came (all to quickly!) the bus driver refused us as we were wet! Also saying that he did not drop off to the campsite anymore! Luckily Toni had the for sight to get Spud’s number, who quickly came to rescue us! This night Toni gave herself the nick name ‘pissy pants’ due to the fact that she whipped on her shorts over her wet cosy, which made her shorts wet. As they dried it made her look like she had wet herself!

Dinner was a chicken curry with salad then we head back to a different sunset viewing point for Uluru, again there are loads of buses and people there, but this time Spud turn’s up with a real treat, a couple of bottles of very nice sparkling wine and biscuits and dips. Yummy! We manage to get a couple of group photo’s to which was lovely.

Spud put on some rocking music and we were all happily singing our hearts out on our return. He even encouraged us to be singing and waving our arm’s wildly out the window as her toured the campsite with the windows open, just to let everyone know how much fun we were having.

We all jumped off laughing and giggling. This evening Toni encouraged a huge game of ‘Shithead’ (Julia at least you will know what we are on about & Caroline I think you called it Koi!). We even got Spud and quiet Katie to join in! Toni helped Liam and Charlotte helped Katie. Both Charlotte and Katie lost! But we all laughed so much! Into the Swag’s for the last time tonight. We tried one on top of the other tonight, which was even more comfortable. We will miss them.

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Comments

[Beata and Tomek]

nice one ;-)