While we were at Uluru, I took approximately 320 photos over the 4 days we were there and 1 of these photos features transparent, foggy circles dotted randomly all over the picture. Sometimes these “circles” appear in a photo when a flash is used, the camera captures bright sunlight or there’s a problem within the digital processing of the camera. BUT, this photo I took has none of these qualities. I took the photo at night and I did not use a flash. If these circles appeared during the digital imaging process then they would completely block out that part of the picture — however as you can see these circles are TRANSPARENT. Even if, despite these factors, the circles were of a practical origin, they should have shown up in EVERY photo I took but they only feature in ONE photograph!

This leads me to believe (being the fairly superstitious person that I am) that these circles are what is known as orbs. Orbs are said to be spirits of the deceased floating in the air and with Uluru/Kata Tjuta being very spiritual places… it fits! Spooky, huh?

Kata Tjuta – looks like Homer Simpson lying down

Hey there! Sorry, I haven’t blogged for weeks! Anyway, where was I up to? Oh that’s right, our camel ride…

After our interesting yet insightful camel back ride through the desert, giving us a perfect, uninterrupted view of the mega-rock that is Uluru, we kinda went back to the hotel and… yeah, well had a nana nap! You can’t blame us! We were up at 4.30 that morning! Anyway at around 12-1 o’clock maybe? We got up once more and made our way through the sea of moth wings on the ground (they were everywhere! …poor cleaners) to the pool. We stayed there for a while, just chilling (well, it wasn’t really chilling considering the temperature outside soared to almost 40°C) and sipping cocktails and  in the case of Jack and I; mocktails (our favourite was the Uluru Special!)

Anyway, after we lay immobile for roughly 3 hours, we made our way upstairs again to get changed for our Sounds of Silence dinner. It was to be our second adventure of the trip!

We arrived at a small lookout-like area in the middle of the desert (go figure!) and were welcomed by waiters in black and white. It was all quite nice. A man (with a mysterious pair of black sunnies) was playing the didgeridoo (which we later learned was called a “ydaki” in Aboriginal terms). The sun was getting ready to set around Uluru and Kata Tjuta. It was spectacular! The didge guy (for the lack of a better term) gave us a bit of (detailed) sacred history about the land which confirmed our shared belief that he was slightly mad. We ate small nibbles which included kangaroo on large croutons and crocodile pastries. Quite… let’s say unique.

After a while we made our way down a (red) dirt path to where we were to eat dinner. (I am going to try to upload a video I took on my phone while we walked!) We sat down at a large table and soon found that we were to dine with a family from Perth and a couple from Japan. It was sure to make for an interesting night and boy was I right about this! We spent the first 40 minutes or so watching the desert under the setting sun and making small talk with our table-mates. We soon discovered that the family from Perth were very straighty-180 whereas the Japanese couple spoke little English.

To begin with my mum introduced herself to the Japanese man. Their conversation went something like this:

Mum: “Hello, you from Japan” (My Mum tends to start speaking like an Asian when talking to Asian people)

Man: “Yes”

Mum: “Well, I’m Simonne”

Man: “Ohh, yeah I Japanese!”

It was so funny! We were cackling with laughter (why is it that the funniest moments of our trip so far have involved Japanese tourists? Jenny?)

As for the family from Perth,  I think Jenny’s extensive stories (sorry Jen!) put them off a tad. Maybe also because, we’re all a bit adventurous and this probably made them think we were a bit OUTRAGEOUS! (And, Jenny, who’s to say we’re not?!) Let’s just say that particular family avoided us around our hotel for the rest of our stay…

We had dinner, which was a buffet of Australian food (which I even as an Australian have never eaten before!), and then the actual dinner under the stars began.

It all started with an Aboriginal story about the land and the stars. Then an astronomer (I forget his name so I will now call him “Star Guide”) came out and started pointing out and explaining different stars and constellations. Dead set, the amount of stars that you could see out there was amazing, I would say 1000 times more than Sydney.

He pointed out all the astrological signs and some of the more famous and visible constellations such as The Seven Sisters, The Southern Cross, The Saucepan and some warrior… The Milky Way stretched right across the sky – it was just one arm of the spiral stretching as far as the eye could see. It was great because Star Guide had this huge, laser-like torch that shone right into the sky; pinpointing each joint of a grouping.

Hey, did you know that because stars are so far away, their light has a long way to travel to reach earth. So, the light you see at night from stars, probably left its own star around 1000 years ago. So looking into the night’s sky, you are looking into the past. Also, a star might have died but its light can still be seen from Earth. Star Guide put it into perspective when he said the light we see tonight might have left it’s star when Jesus roamed the Earth, or maybe when Julius Caesar was alive! SCARY!

Anyway, after Star Guide’s presentation we were free to go over and look into some of the telescopes that were set up. We all had a wander over to have a look and found that we were able to see Mars! It was really weird looking at another planet, also an ORANGE one! We were also able to see the Seven Sisters which was amazing!

After this, the buses started rounding us all up to take us back to our various hotels.

When we got back to Sails in the Desert we went back upstairs to get straight to bed. We had to wake up early AGAIN the next morning for our sunrise viewing!

4am anyone?

Mum and I on "Wombat"

Jenny and Jack on "Kahn"

Kata Tjuta in distance

Well, at 4.30am on the morning of the 18th January, I stumbled deliriously around my hotel room, piecing together a comfortable outfit that I could wear on a camel in the middle of the desert. I was a little annoyed since at 3.30am my phone alarm (still adjusting to the hour and a half time difference) went off and I can tell you that waking up to Ne-Yo’s “Miss Independent” on full blast at that hour of the morning was NOT in my or my mother’s best interests. Anyway, at around 5 all four of us met outside our rooms 328 and 329 and made our way down to the front of the hotel. We sat down, waiting for the shuttle bus to arrive and tried to rest before our first BIG adventure in Uluru. The bus arrived and soon we were at the small building where we would start our tour.

We discovered that backpacks weren’t allowed to be worn during the tour as the camel behind you was likely to attempt to eat it and pull you down with it (Camels think about food 95% of the time!). So, after leaving our belongings behind we set out to meet our camel that we would be sitting on for the next hour or so.

We got geared up (helmets and sheepskin rugs) and found 8  camels strung, patiently waiting for their passengers. Kristi (the cameleer… yes that’s what they’re called!) said that she would arrange us on the camels due to weight. Mum and Jenny took one look at the other extremely skinny Japanese tourists that we would be riding with and proceeded to the front of the line towards the bigger looking camels. Actually, something very funny (regarding the title of this post) happened just then. Kristi was telling us that when the camel stands up you have to lean back. Because this is a very important tip and there are alot of Japanese tourists in Uluru not fluent in English, Kristi had obviously learnt “lean back” in Japanese to ensure safety, this translated to oshido. All the Japanese tourists nodded. So the first (a particularly small) couple made their way to a (particularly small) camel. Kristi kept saying oshido as the camel stood up. Once the camel was safely still and upright, she started preparing the next people. However the Japanese couple remained in oshido position!! There sitting atop this  camel were two people leaning back as far as possible with very serious looks on their faces. We all started laughing as discreetly as possible.

Once it was our turn to get on the camel, we were the last people. So, I hop on the front and Mum hooks her leg over to get on the back. Well, Mum got her leg caught on her sheepskin rug and therefore fell back. But, looking at the red dirt beneath her she mentally refuses to land in it so there is Mum hanging off the side of this (by now) cranky camel. I squealed at the time but looking back now  it’s quite funny.

So, as you can see our wild adventure got off to quite a funny (in both senses of the word!) start. Once we got started though, walking through the desert, it was a really nice experience. The sun had not yet risen so we were in semi-darkness but the light coming from over the horizon got brighter and brighter by the minute. The massive rock itself loomed in a silhouetted shape before us. It was amazing. As the sun finally rose, the rock changed colours from dark blue, to purple and finally to its infamous red-orange.

Along the way our cameleer, Kristi, pointed out many animal tracks that were moulded lightly into the red dust. She actually started really freaking me out as she pointed out dingo and even snake tracks!! Anyway, she also identified different plants and at one point showed us the bulldog ant (capable of killing a person with heart problems in minutes and causing 20mins worth of excruciating pain!!) on her hiking stick.

The tour was so spectacular and I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from the beautiful landscape and of course the magical Uluru.

After a while we laid eyes upon the other famous rocks; Kata Tjuta (aka. Olgas but just like Uluru it’s disrespectful to the native Aborigines to call them by their english name). I hadn’t properly seen Kata Tjuta yet, every time I looked for them from our hotel’s lookout the rocks were blocked out by the brightness of the sun setting behind them. Well, I underestimated their magnificence. They were truly special and even from roughly 30kms away they still looked HUGE!

We begun strolling our way back to home base and I soaked up every last piece of magic from the moment. With some reluctance I had to clamber off my camel, who by the way was named Wombat. Jenny and Jack’s camel was called Kahn.

We wandered into the building and were met with the scents of homemade bread wafting through to us. I eagerly buttered a piece for myself, however found them slightly bizarre in taste. Oh well, I guess you can’t have everything perfect!

We hopped back on the bus that then took us back out to our resort. I have to say that so far, Uluru had been my favourite holiday destination ever! And we weren’t even halfway through our adventure! I couldn’t wait for our dinner under the stars that night…

We got through the airport (or lack there of!) with our luggage and boarded the shuttle bus that was to take us to our resort; Sails in the Desert.  By the way, in case you might have thought otherwise, the heat was tremendous! As soon as we got off the cool plane we realised how hot it was. (But I have to say, it’s not has bad as Sydney heat, because there is no humidity in Uluru)

We started driving off down the road, surrounded on both sides by desert and the green bushes/trees that I had seen dotted on the landscape from the air. At times we could see Uluru sitting out there in the middle of the land, huge against the flat landscape. I quickly reached for my camera. Little did I know that these would be the first of around 400 photos that I was going to take while in Uluru! The bus driver, a young man, was quite funny on our way to the hotel. We pulled up to a deserted intersection (confirming the total isolation of the place) where a stop sign was posted in the ground. The bus driver stated “Here, ladies and gentlemen is the only stop sign that you will see in Uluru”! Also, when we were passing the town centre he said, “Here, ladies and gents is the town centre… (short pause), that was it! If you blinked you would have missed it!”

We got off at our resort and were pleased to find a beautiful reception with an Aboriginal gallery located in the foyer. After we checked in, we went to find our rooms, passing a very welcoming pool. We walked along what seemed like endless outdoor corridors that looked out upon more red dust until we came to rooms 328 and 329. The four of us went into our rooms and quickly got changed into our swimmers. We went downstairs and found some deckchairs on the grass. However, we all went to hop straight into the pool. It was so nice to be swimming in that pool after our reasonably long plane trip. Jack and I stayed in for hours with Mum and Jenny popping in every so often. It was so nice to be able to relax and live in holiday mode. At around 6pm, we all went back up to our rooms to have showers and get ready to go into the town centre.

We caught the shuttle bus again (the shuttle buses just do circles around the whole ayers rock resort, which is made up of different hotels) to the town centre, passing different hotels, the camping ground and you guessed it… more red desert. We got off at our stop and walked our way into the small shopping area. We had a quick look around and decided to eat in the only restaurant in the town centre (it was a difficult choice) which was called “Gecko’s Cafe”. It kind of reminded me of an RSL kind of restaurant, but was very nice with lovely food. All four of us chatted about how excited we were and how much we were looking forward to actually seeing the rock up close. Of course my favourite part was desert at the end, chocolate brownies! YUM!

We wandered our way back to the hotel instead of catching a bus, and went back to our hotel rooms. By this stage it was around 10pm and we had to get ready for our early-rise adventure in the morning… SUNRISE CAMEL TOURS! I was really excited about being on a camel in the middle of the desert, but the part where I had to wake  up at 4:30am…. yeah, we’ll see how excited I am then!

On the 17th Jan 2010, Mum, Jenny, Jack and I set out on our Uluru adventure! We met at Gate Lounge 4 at Sydney Airport at around 9.10am and then moved on to the Qantas Club Lounge to wait for our boarding time. Jenny is a member of the Qantas Club so she was able to get us in. We found a place to sit then went up to the buffet to collect breakfast. However, when Mum went to get her coffee she made a small error. Being the clever little chicken that she is (do you detect my hint of sarcasm?) she placed her cup under what she thought was the nozzle out of which the coffee pours. Well, she got that one wrong, didn’t she? She pressed the button that said ‘flat white’ and the coffee began spurting out the other end of the machine. Mum stood there watching her still empty cup while the rest of us stood around cacking ourselves with laughter. Mum then proceeded to turn around and tell the random young man waiting in line behind her how ‘difficult’ the coffee machine was to operate!

Anyway, (with Mum safely sitting down) at about 20 to 10 the call went over the airport PA system that the Qantas flight to Ayers Rock (which should be called Uluru as a sign of respect for the native Aborigines who originally named it) was starting to board. We made a quick bathroom break and made our way down to Gate 4. Our excitement levels increased! After we were settled in our seats, the plane began taxing around the runways. After a few minutes the plane engines began to roar and soon enough we were soaring above our not-so-little town of Sydney. I squeezed Mum’s hand as we made our ascent trying to pick out familiar landmarks and waited for the plane to level out. The trip was going to take just under 3hrs so I made myself comfortable with a puzzle book.

Every so often I would peek out the window and see what we were flying over. The suburbs and streets soon melted into forests and bush and before long I could see the famous red desert unfolding out beneath me. As we flew over the red, dry land I was completely in awe about the enormity of it. In every direction all that could be seen was red, red and more red (sometimes interuppted with a deep shade of orange!). Dotted all over the soaring planes were dark green bushes and trees. At one point I could see a tiny cluster of white-roofed buildings but compared to the vast crimson desert surrounding it, they looked like crumbs laying on a warehouse floor.

Closer to our destination I could see Lake Eyre spread out below us. However when I say lake, I really mean OCEAN! The lake was white and pale yellow due to it been dried out. It continued on for AGES. The proper size stats on it say that it’s approx. 1.2 million square km, covering a sixth of the country and is twice the size of Texas, USA. In some places dark-coloured estuaries branched out into hundreds of thread-like lines painted upon the earth. It was totally amazing. Before I knew it, the captains voice came out over the loudspeaker informing us that we were about to begin our descent into Uluru (excitement!!) and that the time there was an hour and a half earlier that Sydney time. Mum and I nudged the seats in front of us that contained Jenny and Jack. They turned around with smiles on their faces sharing in our excitement. As we came down closer to the land, we could suddenly see Kata Tjuta (aka Olgas) appearing out of the ground. They were HUGE! So huge in fact that they are actually higher than Uluru itself.  People reached for their cameras hoping for the perfect shot. I was speechless (which is quite unusual for me) except for a couple of ‘wow’s and ‘oh, thats amazing’s. Then as the plane did a slight swerve to the right we could see the massive rock itself. It sat majestically in  the middle of the desert in all of it’s natural glory. I simply could not believe that this rock had escaped my must-see’s for the future. It was enormous standing at 348 metres high (43m higher than Sydney Centrepoint Tower) and it’s size being at 3km by 2km. It was quite frankly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in all of my 13 years. It was obvious that Mum, Jenny and Jack felt the same if their gasps of wonderment were anything to go by. By this stage we were not far from the ground and I started to wonder, “where the hell is this airport because I can’t see a thing!?”. We were almost to the ground, so much so that I could make out proper trees and see them moving slightly. The airport was still nowhere to be seen seconds before landing. But then in a flash the tarmac appeared and a we made a loud bump as the plane landed.

Finally… we had made it to the Red Centre!!