Today we woke early and went to Uluru (Ayers Rock). We had been planning to go see the sunrise, but it was very, very cold and we stayed in bed too late. It gets very cold here at night! It went from 27degrees to about 7 last night (that’s about 80 and 44 Farenheit). It was very cold going to the bathroom in the middle of the night! Especially since the bathroom was about a block away from our cabin! Most of us skipped the cold trek to take showers in a building that was open to the outside air.
Ayers Rock was orange and against the bright blue sky, just beautiful. The rock itself is huge and covered with scars and caves. The original Aborigine tribes have stories about each of it’s clefts and marks, but won’t share the stories with the uninitiated. We saw some cave drawings and went on two short walks--one of which ended at a water hole. The color against the bright blue of the sky was what kept drawing me. Randy wanted to walk up the hill, but that was closed because of high winds and because over 30 people have died climbing up. The aborigines ask that no one walk up because it is sacred to them. There are many sacred spots for both men and women.
We do not have internet that supports uploading photos, so my photos for yesterday and today remain not online--I will add them when we get a better internet connection.
Then we drove for several hours and stopped for gas and lunch (we brought food to have foccacia sandwiches, fruit, chips, and water). We stopped at a small little place called Curtin Cattle Station for gas and ate at one of their outdoor tables. Very friendly people--they also had an emu and several large cages with birds to look at for free. The cattle station reminded me of the movie Australia which was supposedly filmed in this general area.
Then to Kings Canyon. We stopped and Randy wanted to take the Rim Walk, but it is supposedly strenuous and they suggest not starting after 4, so we hiked the easier Kings stream walk and saved the rim walk until tomorrow morning. Then we checked into our lodging. Well, they said that the rooms only hold 4 so we had to book a room and an extra bed in another room. We found that no one else was booked for the room for the extra person so we decided to have a girls room and boys room but then found out that one of the beds is a double bed, so it will sleep five. The one room was stinky, so we went to the other which doesn’t have bed reading lights, just a dim light in the ceiling.
They have a great scam going here to take money from tourists. Each settlement serving tourists is a “resort” with many places for tourists to stay with different expense levels. The Ayers Rock “resort” also had a bank, shop, grocery shop, etc. The “resort” here says that it has a store (the only one in the area) so that you can make your own food, but it does not serve enough of anything to make a meal. So unless you bring food in, you must eat at their cafe, which has personal size pizzas for $18--and that is the cheapest meal (and does not fill your tummy). So we ate a non-satisfying, tasteless dinner for 75 Australian dollars (which is almost $80US).
One fruit we will miss is mandarin oranges--not those things in a can--I mean real oranges with skins that you peel. The ones in New Zealand were fabulous--so sweet! The ones here are less fabulous, but some are still good.
Oh well, off to sleep for another early cold morning.
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