Rock on Tommy
Trip Start
Dec 06, 2006
1
142
188
Trip End
Ongoing
Uluru,
Australia
Saturday, March 1, 2008
We finished the walk at the point where people can climb up if they chose to. Written everywhere, in the cultural centre, on a big sign, in every guide book going, there's a message from the Aboriginal people asking people to choose not to climb as it's a sacred place. Don't climb please. If you're thinking of climbing, please don't. Choose not to climb, climb, choose not to, don't climb, please. It's quite clear. Yet when we got there, there was a load of people clambering their way up there. There's a chain, but from what I saw it wasn't helping a massive amount as people on their way down were sliding on their backsides. There's been about 35 deaths and quite often it's people chasing their hats that have blown off and once you start running, you're not going to stop until a very sudden halt at the bottom. Christian, the French lad from our group did the climb and karma was in fine fettle on this tour as he found out at the top he'd forgotten his camera. It was mainly people from Japanese tour buses that were doing it, so my advice is if you ever find yourself in a sacred Japanese temple, why not return the disrespectful favour by waltzing in and have a crap on the floor.
That was pretty much it for the tour, although there was still one more lunch and another opportunity for the annoying greedy gits to fill their plates and faces leaving behind morsels for the rest. It's really not difficult to have basic manners but there you go, lesson learnt, I'll be first in the queue everytime from now on. This time I was about 5 from the back so I feel sorry for whoever was last and endured a dry grated cheese sandwich. We were due to call into a Camel farm for some camel riding but in the end just blasted straight back as the resident hypochondriac who hadn't been drinking enough water had decided to be ill. Later she took herself to hospital, no doubt to be told to go away rest, eat and drink properly and stop moaning and claiming to have a stomach infection. Maybe not, maybe she's dying from a horrible disease and I'll feel guilty. Still, I doubt it as the poor sod that was travelling with her said it was the third time she'd shuttled herself off to A&E.
That night as a finale to the trip we all gathered together for a meal and some beers and also because Ben's 30th birthday had fallen during the trip. It was brilliant. A full plate of food. It was also nice anyway as other than food stealing it was a nice bunch of people. Ben was asking everyone to write in a comments book, but the funny thing was that due to his dodgy memory he adds comments of his own afterwards to the peoples comments so he can remember who's who. He doesn't mean anything offensive, but writes what he knows will trigger his memory. He wrote that the Belgian lass was on ecstasy as she was smiling all the time. Another lad was declared a hippy and I was waiting to see what I was going have written about me. In the end I reckon I got the nicest one as he said that I reminded him of his favourite cousin. He's currently taking time out from an electrician course and is going to travel around Europe in a few months time. I'd love to be there when he lands in civilisation, the best way I can describe Ben is that Crocodile Dundee is alive and well. He's a stereotypical Aussie and I think he'll be in for some shocks after his sheltered outback life. I didn't stay for the end as I was asleep on my feet and headed back as the next day I was up and on a plane again. 4 states in a week, I'm cooking with travelling gas now.
