Road trip through the Outback – part 2

Days on the trip: 239

After our trip to the MacDonnell ranges, it was time to return our relocation campervan. Of course we still hadn’t made it to Ayers Rock, but that was all part of the plan. So we picked up a new rental campervan in Alice (not a relocation this time, but a Jurassic Park themed car from Wicked Campers), dropped off the land cruiser, and headed to Ayers Rock, aka Uluru.

The drive there was more outback, over 450km of it, but we were experts at that now. The drive was uneventful, still no kangaroos, but we knew we were close when we saw Mount Connor.  Sometimes people mistake this for Uluru – but we’d read far too many stories to make the same mistake ourselves. Near to Uluru, there is a hotel/camping complex called Uluru Resort, where we had a camping reservation.  On arriving, we checked in, and since we didn’t have aircon anymore, we quickly headed to the pool to cool down.  After this, we headed out to Ayers rock for sunset.

We got there way too early as we still had an hour until sunset once we were all parked up. Nevermind – we took some photos, played games on our phones and carefully watched the weather. Lots of grey clouds were rolling in behind us, and we didn’t know whether we’d get our sunset. But then, as sunset began, the clouds disappeared, and it was magic.

Back at the campsite we BBQ’d some sausages on one of the free grills, and had the most expensive red wine we’ve had in a while – 35 aussie dollars was the cheapest available. And then it was time for bed as we had an early start the next day.

The next day of course we wanted to see Ayers Rock for sunrise, so we got up and left the campsite at 6am to follow the big stream of cars all heading in the same direction. This time we weren’t going to be an hour early – sleep is too valuable. In fact, maybe we should have left a few minutes earlier as sunrise started just as we were pulling in to the viewing platform. However, we still got some really lovely views and felt proud that we made it there so early.

Sunset: tick; sunrise: tick; general photos: tick. But all this time we were actually quite far away from the rock. So we thought we’d go on the Mutitjulu walk. It’s only a short 30min walk but it’s right by the rock and goes to a fresh water pool and some stone paintings. We were not the only ones there, so from some of the tour guides around we could listen in to some explanation about the fresh water reservoir, which was used by Aboriginals for fresh water and was far too valuable to use for any form of swimming or washing. This was also one of the places which recently had lots of waterfalls down Ayers Rock because of all the rain. At the paintings we learned that it was difficult to date them and that there was one patch that was bald. Apparently a few decades ago tourist groups would come and to improve the contrast of their photos, the guide would splash water over the paintings. Unfortunately that meant that with time, the paintings were washed away.

After the little walk, we simply drove around the rock and watched some ant-people climb Uluru. We decided not to climb to respect the Aboriginals’ wish not to climb and because it was pretty hot. (And Andi had already been up there on a previous trip.)

Instead we made our way to the Olgas, which are a similar rock formation (although many of them) a bit further away. We got some lovely views from the viewing platform and then headed closer to do some of the valley of the winds walk. We only did the very first bit since it was far too hot to do the whole walk. The walk was nice, but not as iconic as seeing Uluru up close but at least the valley of the winds did provide some breezes.

It was only about 10am but way too hot to be outside any longer. So it was either going to be a day in the pool at Uluru resort and then another sunset/sunrise, or as we opted to, a drive to Kings Canyon. We would get to see something new and while driving we could have the aircon on.

We arrived at Kings Canyon resort around 2/3pm, found a spot to camp and then went to their pool. It wasn’t as nice as the one at Ayers Rock but it was the only place that was reasonably cool, followed by the bar, which had at least a fan. We enjoyed some drinks, relaxed, and for sunset Andi got a glass of prosecco. The sunset viewing platform was right at the camping sight, so really not very far, but since we didn’t want to be too early, we almost cut it too fine.

We enjoyed a pizza in the restaurant and then had an early night because the plan for the next day was to do the Canyon rim walk. The walk closes at 9am because of the heat and it is recommended to start the walk around 6am. 6am, we didn’t quite manage but 6.30am was close enough. We were warned already that the first part is pretty steep, but that once you’ve managed that it’s reasonably flat. At least the steepest bit would be during the coolest time and once we were at the top we had a great view over the canyon. As we were walking along the rim we passed different view points into the canyon and also walked on – and saw – some pretty cool rock formations: different stones, cracks, cones, domes, … all a bit of an alien landscape. Also, in the middle of all these rocks was a small pond with plants growing around it, called Garden of Eden. The walk was very nice and certainly one of the highlights of our red centre trip.

Just before 9am we were back at our car. Technically we could have still just about started the walk but it was definitely pretty hot now. Instead we found some free wifi right there (who would have thought!), went back to the camp site for a shower and started driving towards Alice Springs.

Just before Alice we found a free camp site, which actually ended up getting pretty full with people heading out to Uluru. At least it meant any leftover camping stuff that we didn’t need could be passed on to others who could make more use of it.

The next day we returned the car in the morning and went to the airport for our flight back to Melbourne. In Melbourne we had one day to sort out anything we needed before South America (e.g. vaccinations for Martin) and enjoyed a couple more evenings with Christine and Bruno.

 

With this, it’s “Good-bye, Australia”. Hope you enjoyed this blog “season”.  Now we’re off to South America, blogs coming very soon (at a more reasonable pace).