Our round be world trip (9): Alice to Ayers

Day 10 (Thursday) was essentially a travelling day as we went overland from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock. At first the weather was cloudy with a moderate temperature, but soon we had totally cloudless skies again and the heat rose to 34C/93F. The journey by coach took seven and a half hours, but we stopped at five points.

Before we left Alice Springs, we visited Anzac Hill, a memorial to the Australian & New Zealand soldiers who lost their lives in wars all the way from the Boer War to Afghanistan, and the local headquarters of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The RFDS has an impressive new facility for visitors which includes a cinema where a film explains the operations of this vital service. Founded in 1958, the service now has 21 bases covering 80% of the country and it has 61 aircraft (four in Alice), almost all of which are the Swiss-manufactured Pilatus PC-12.

Leaving Alice Springs, we headed almost due south on the single-lane Stuart Highway. Next halt was at Stuart Well’s Camel Farm where, as well as refreshments and toilets, short camel rides were on offer. Vee and eight-year old Mia from Texas shared a double-humped animal. Further south, we stopped for lunch at a place called Erldunda which boasted a paddock of emus. We then turned west and headed for the Rock, stopping for the last time at an isolated point where a bright red sand dune offered views in one direction of salt flats and in the other direction of the Rock itself.

Our destination was in fact the Ayers Rock Resort at Yulara which is a complex that is very well-provisioned but very expensive (it was the first time that no free WiFi was available for any length of time). There are six choices of accommodation and we were in the Desert Gardens Hotel. Other facilities include 13 eating establishments, a variety of bars, shops and galleries, petrol, police and fire stations, and a health centre.

Ayers Rock – or, as the indigenous community calls it, Uluru (Meeting Place) – is thought to be around 600 million years old and its is regarded as sacred by the local Anangu people. It is 343 metres high, 3.6 kms long, 2.4 kms wide, and 9.4 kms in circumference and more than two-thirds of it is believed to be underground.

Over the next 48 hours, we were going to see the Rock in a variety of different situations and the first viewing was at sunset. The timing for sunset was 7.04 pm but our guide Manuela and driver Maria had us in position three quarters of an hour before and helped create a party atmosphere by setting up a table with champagne & wine plus various nibbles. We had wonderful views of the Rock and, as the sun descended, the predominant colour melted from an ochre red into a russet red into a brownish red into a greyish red. We were awed by this spectacle of nature.

Back at the hotel, all the group chose the same eating location (“Gekos Cafe”) at the same time and staff pulled tables together so that we could eat as a collective – a sign of how well we British, American and Canadian travellers were getting along. Roger had kangaroo burger (which was so fresh it was hopping) and Vee chose seafood platter with pasta.


 




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