Ayres Rock

• Mrsdp's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

Trip Start May 07, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jan 06, 2009 Next
Entry

  Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Northern Territory, Australia
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Hi everyone
 
Ok, so in our hired 4x4 we trundled off to....the middle of absolutely nowhere! Here are the driving directions to get from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock:
 
 - Drive south out of Alice Springs
 - Take the second right
 - Ayers Rock is up there on the right.
 
Too Easy, as the Ozzies frequently end their sentences with. Except this journey takes SIX hours!!!
 
Well, our drive to Uluru was fascinating. You couldn't find yourself in much more isolated and barren surroundings than the Stuart and Lassiter Highways from Alice Springs, all 445km of them! The road was long, other traffic passing you was rare, the environment was red, dusty and blisteringly hot. I have never seen such endlessly long roads - they just go on forever, rolling up and down in the distance with heat mirages glistening on the tarmac. There are frequent unmanned resting places: little more than a solitary trestle table plonked in the desert; with even more frequent signs telling you to take a rest - wise advice. There's the occasional oasis of a 'roadhouse', consisting of a petrol station, 'chew and spew' eatery and some toilets. It appears this is where the majority of homo sapiens in this part of the world exist.
 
Every now and then we drove over a cattle grid into a 'protected area'. This is an aboriginal area. There's no change of scenery or anything, just a random cattle grid in the middle of nowhere. But, you are banned from taking alcohol and pornography into these zones.

Our drive to Ayres Rock

Clearly then, if you're stuck in the outback it makes sense to take some porn with you, so you can barter with the locals for bush-tucker!
 
Until fairly recently there used to be no speed limits in the Northern Territory. A fairly unique situation in the world... endlessly long straight two lane roads with no speed limits attracted all manners of people and their souped up chariots of steel. Mostly the Japanese! This is where the famous Cannonball run was held and this is where, on the Stuart Highway, half way between Alice Springs and the turn off for Uluru, that a Japanese Cannonball competitor crashed and took out several bystanders with him. There's a plaque on the side of the road to commemorate the fact. It's on a long straight unchanging section of road, why on earth he crashed there and how on earth there happened to be bystanders just at this particular  desolate section of the highway, is not entirely clear. Perhaps he hit a party of aboriginals scoring some booze and porn off of a passing kangaroo or something, of which there are numerous dead examples (kangaroos, that is) dotted along the drive (usually being eaten by Eagles, which are a bugger to catch on camera). Whatever the reason for him crashing, this one incident put an end to the no speed limit in the Northern Territory. An over-reaction?? Australians do like to ensure you're safe... I might suggest they hand out a free body sized bubble wrap suit to tourists coming in.
 
Another interesting thing is that there is no unleaded petrol out here.

Me standing in the middle of nowhere!

Instead they have this stuff they call Opal. Basically, it's unleaded petrol with the smell taken out. This is to keep the aboriginals safe, they got into the habit of sniffing petrol and getting a little poorly from it. So a new fuel was developed just for them and that's all you can buy in the area. Feel free to sniff it, it's perfectly safe now. Not sure what it's like to drink, but I suspect some aboriginals have conducted the experiment.
 
You have a lot of time to ponder these oddities of Outback existence while trundling the unchanging kilometres stretching out before you. It can be quite a drowsy drive. Drowsy that is until a road train approaches... everyone tells you about the massive multi-trailer trucks that ply the outback roads terrorising the wildlife. Trailer after trailer thundering past you and then miles of flying dust in their wake. We saw quite a few - and you know what? They've got nothing on an articulated double-trailer Norbert Detressangle screaming up the M25. We were promised tigers and we got fluffy kittens. They really are nothing special at all. Other than to briefly break up the boredom of the endless Martian miles. Well the triple petrol tanker we saw pulling out of a 'servo' ('service station' to you and me) was quite impressive actually.
 
Suddenly, we got quite excited at spotting Ayres Rock in the distance. We had arrived, finally. It was large and looming. Not exactly how we imagined it to be from photos though. That's because it wasn't Ayres Rock! It was actually Mt Connor, a similarly large table top mountain rising 350m up from the desert.

Ayres Rock at the start of sunset

It's also the most famous red-herring. Frequently, tourists mistake this big rock for Ayres Rock. (David: I'd have actually liked to explore Mt Connor... to see if there are any dinosaurs up there... it might be possible: the whole of Australia is a living fossil.)
 
So, more driving...eventually we really did catch sight of Ayres Rock and it really was as incredible as all the photos and people's accounts of it. It was massive and seemed to emanate volcanic heat from its deep terracotta-red surface. At Ayres Rock there is nothing but Ayres Rock itself and a large resort of camping sites and hotels... AND an Airport (David: For cheats, and fat Americans). If you come to Ayres Rock this resort is your only chance for a bed. However, the resort has about 5 different accommodation choices from luxury 5* down to dormitory hostel type places. We declined the option of having to share a dorm with two other people and a bathroom that would smell of beer and men's wee, even though it was very cheap. The 5* hotel was staggeringly and ridiculously expensive - we had seen better rooms for half the price in Delhi! More off-putting were the three guests that complaining to reception about services or their room while we were discussing vacancies with another receptionist. Next on the list was also ridiculously expensive and only a 3* but it was either sleep in the car or take the room. It was clean and friendly though. You'd think for such an incredible tourist attraction the accommodation would be attractively reasonable to...obviously draw people in.

Ayres Rock near the end of sunset

No. Let's milk the tourist bastards for all they've got regardless of the fact that we are in such a historically sacred and stunning environment.
 
Soon after check in we immediately rushed out to Ayres Rock to catch the sunset...in about 1 hour's time. We had heard rumours and read accounts of how the Rock changes colour magnificently while the sun rises and sets. We bought some beers and small snacks and zoomed off leaving a trail of dust in our path. There was a small car park before Ayres Rock where you had to park. If you wanted to get closer to the Rock then you had to go on a guided trek. We opened up the back of our 4x4 and sat drinking beer and eating 'Burger Rings' crisps. It was cosy. Primatively romantic!! Until.....a ute parked next to us (a ute, we eventually found out, is a Utility truck..basically an open-backed small lorry..but every single word in Oz is shortened! Funny and highly addictive!!) Out of the ute jumped two couples, crashing open the back of their ute, spreading a tablecloth, cracking open a bottle of white plonk, ripping open some smelly soft cheese, rustling open some crunchy crackers and they quaffed and gossiped with the sunset reflected in their sunglasses. We looked down at our warm stubbies (stubbies are small bottles of beer) and our cheap family bag of burger ring crisps and felt like peasants sitting next to sovereignty!!
 
Anyway, more importantly: the sunset. It set amazingly fast so we took photos of the Rock every 10 minutes and the colour changes were incredible.

Ayres Rock at 7am

It went from a light terracotta to a deep heavy red to a foreboding distant muddy brown. So beautiful. Ayres Rock is 348m high and apparently ⅔ of this is under the ground!!! I didn't really feel magnificently spiritual or like I was amidst some soul-changing sacred stone. I didn't experience a rush of emotions nor hold a frozen hypnotic and transfixing stare of utter reverence. I enjoyed myself immensely with my wonderful hubbie but I'm afraid walking the Great Wall of China, to think of one thing on the spot now, was far more moving for me and held my breathing in adoration, than a rock that changes colour with the sun. It is indeed something magnificent. But it's a rock. At the end of the day. Get over it! (David: it's quite hard to find any information about its geology. However, it's clear that it's not a giant pebble sitting in the desert sand. It's what's left of a huge mountain range, worn down by wind over the eons. But, here's the amazing bit: it's made up of smooth rounded sandstone pebbles embedded in sandstone. Now, just think about THAT for one second... once upon a time there was a sandstone mountain, and it gradually broke up. It shed its boulders and rocks over millions of years which were then rolled and smoothed by water - again for millions of years. Then those smooth pebbles and rocks went and got themselves embedded in some more sand, which turned to rock - again! Then, that got pushed up to become giant mountains to rival the Himalayas, which were eroded again... and Ayres Rock (and to be fair: surrounding formations - there are a few actually) is all that's left.

People climbing the rock at 8am

It's only a few 100 metres high. If you see one of the holes left by a pebble you can be pretty sure that you're looking at something that last saw daylight before life on earth. If you accidently kick a pebble free (it's easy to do accidently) then you are the first living thing to see the underside of it. But yeah... at the end of the day it is just a lump of rock! I'm sure the Dingos that piss on it don't bother pondering the enormity of time.)
 
The next day, we headed to Kata Tjuta (meaning many heads) which is also known as The Olgas. The Olgas are a group of domed rocks in the middle of absolutely flaming nowhere but only about 30mins from Ayres Rock. The surrounding landscape is just barren and red and then you've got these towering domes in the distance. Incredible scene. Mt Olga, the largest of the domes, is 546m. We decided to park up and go on the short trek through Valley of the Winds. This trek takes you through the domed rocks, through incredible dusty, dry environment where the sun cooks you to a raison. Various birds of prey soar and float over your head enabling you to see underneath their beautiful expansive wings but the one thing that drove me absolutely mental were the flies. FOR PITYS SAKES!! we thought the flies were bad in India!! They were trying to get up my nose, in my ears, under my sunglasses. I was flapping and hopping about and effing and blinding like a proper psycho! So in a fit of desperation, I tied my hair up in my pashmina so it was like a big turban, covering my ears. I may have looked odd with a turban and sunglasses on but no more flies in my ears!! David was, as usual, highly calm and collective about the whole thing and just peed his pants watching my tirade. This antagonised me even more so it was quite a show we put on for passing Olga visitors!!! (David: I did have to resort to wearing the rucksack on my head.)
 
Our drive now led us to Kings Canyon to rest our fly-infested nostrils. Another scene of natural and wonderous beauty.
 
Love, us xx

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

The Olgas from afar	David's Ruck-hat!	Me, my turban and I	Barren lands
Me under a tree	Solitary bench

Slideshow Print this entry Share Sydney hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry