Uluru and Kata Tjuta tower over spotless sunny didgeridoo
“…. marred by the fact that it began at 6:00AM,” Nazy asserted.
“6:25, my dear,” I replied, unthinkingly.
The flight, which took almost three hours, crossed what looked like a Martian landscape. We landed in the middle of …
“… the continent,” I thought, aware that the ‘middle of nowhere’ was too centrally located to be descriptive. While we waited on the tarmac to deplane. Nazy looked out the window at the baggage agents.
“They’re all waving their hands, Dan.” She noted. “Why are they doing that?”
“Welcoming us?” I thought.
As soon as we left the airplane, we saw what they were waving at: blowflies. Millions and millions of blowflies. Persistent, relentless, devilish, tenacious and constant blowflies. They followed us into the terminal, they followed us onto the shuttle bus, they followed us into the hotel, they swarmed at our eyes, our ears and our noses. They chased us into the blowfly protection store that sold protective nets to cover your head. It was…
“…. the best A$10 we ever spent,” Nazy remarked.
“It would have been the best A$100,000 we’d ever spent,” I thought, putting my hands in my pocket.
We stayed at Sails in the Dessert in the Ayers Rock Resort area. The resort, about 250 miles from the nearest city, has several hotels and a town square with a grocery store, post office, souvenir shop and a coffee shop. ALL OF THE STORES sell protective nets to cover your head.
Nazy and I have always wanted to see Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock. It is within the Kata Tjuta National Park. After settling on fly nets, Nazy and I began filling in our schedule. We had planned both a sunrise and a sunset tour of the monolith as well as a hike on Kata Tjuta, a less well-known outcropping.
The resort is dry and far (far, far) away from the lights associated with civilization, so we were especially looking for opportunities to see astronomical features — including the ‘brilliant views’ of the Milky Way. We booked an excursion the very day we arrived.
“… and your excursion has been cancelled,” the hotel clerk explained. “It is cloudy.”
“I see,” I said. “It’s a desert,” I thought. “how can it be cloudy?”
The next day was clear, so we stopped by the daytime astronomy talk — seizing on the opportunity to see the sun through a telescope.
“And what should we expect?” I asked as we approached the 14inch scope.
“Well, it’s not sunspot season, so you’ll see a big yellow ball.”
“A yellow ball?” I replied. “Wowee!” I thought.
“But we have two telescopes,” the guide explained. “The other one operates at a different wave length. You’ll see slightly smaller red ball.”
We decided that astronomy at night would be more, eh, (star) gaze-worthy. We set up an evening with the stars. The clouds dissipated, but there was a full moon which interfered. Nevertheless, we saw the Southern Cross, Alpha Centauri and an upside down Orion. And we learned that there are more stars in the Milky Way than “blowflies at Ayers Rock”. (Wrong!)
The sunrise tour was next on the agenda. We departed (sigh) early
Noticing that Nazy’s somewhat lethargic response to the alarm clock, I reassuringly commented:
“I realize that it would be much more convenient if sunrise arrived later in the day, my dear.”
Her response was less than, well, I’m sure your can imagine.
We drove past a field of Spinifex, a very hardy grass that thrives all over Australia. On occasion, the grass wraps inward, exposing razor sharp hollow rod-like structures that can puncture skin. (Luckily, we were in a bus.) We arrived in time to watch the sunrise over Uluru:
From there we drove toward Kata Tjuta, a group of large and ancient rock formations about 20 miles from Uluru. They, like Uluru, are very impressive.
Both rock formations are sacred to the Aborigine population, which by the way is the oldest continuous living human culture on Earth. They have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years. Every event that we attended in Ayers Rock (and most elsewhere in Australia and New Zealand) began with a ‘thank you’ to the natives for
sharing this space.
The next night, we enjoyed an outdoor sunset dinner — watching the skies darken above Uluru and Kata Tjuta, before enjoying the stars, a didgeridoo, a great meal, Australian wine and the ‘field of light’. We sat at a table for ten — and Nazy made friends with all of them, including the farmers from Texas, the interior designers from Tasmania, the newlyweds from Melbourne..
Disclaimer: I can’t truthfully say that I have ever really enjoyed listening to a didgeridoo, but this one was, by far, the best I’ve heard: it sounded like an extremely thick rubber band being banged against stack of basalt rocks.
Nazy also had time to visit the spa (which was great) before we packed up for the next stop — Christchurch, New Zealand. Our vacation was half over.
For last week's letter, please click here
A few more images from Kata Tjuta Uluru National Park
The Field of Light
Uluru at Sunset
Kata Tjuta