May 6-7 Uluru

We drove from Alice Springs towards Uluru. We only made a bit over half way and stopped overnight at Mt Ebenezer. Nothing much at Mt Ebenezer, except for a roadhouse and campiong ground. It wins the prize (so far) for the most expensive petrol in Australia - $2:20/l for unleaded and $2:50/l for diesel. Fortunately, we had filled up at a previous stop, where we paid $1.88/l and thought that was bad. In hindsight, not so bad. Met some interesting folks over dinner at the BBQ area. Tamworth lady with 17yo Italian exchange student Enrico, and Kevin who lectured in Computer Science at RMIT for 10 years.

We set up camp at the Yalara resort. It's expensive at $41/night; but it is the best park we have stayed at. So we don't begrudge the premium (too much). The whole complex looks extremely well planned and seems to operate efficiently.

The rock is in a national park, of course, and dogs are not allowed. So we left the dogs in the caravan and went to see the sunset views of the rock. The view of the rock was good, however the sunset was disappointing - went straight from a yellow sun to grey. No orange, red or pink in the clouds at all. Correspondingly, the rock just went from orange to dull brown. Oh well. We arrived back at our camp site to the melodic tunes of 2 dogs howling and barking. Bugger! OK, so they can't be trusted on their own. Lucky we warned our neighbours before we left. But another disappointment.

The next morning, I got up early and ventured off on my own to see the sunrise views of the rock, while Jude stayed behind with the dogs and also had a bit of a sleep in. What sunrise? There was no sun this morning. Disappointed again. Never mind, still got to spend a couple of hours walking to a few points of interest around the rock and circumnavigated the rock by car. I reckon that's not a bad way of seeing it anyway. The rock climb was closed yesterday and again today. Not too upset about that though. On the positive side, there were hardly any flies around at the rock. That was a pleasant consequence of  overcast skies. Jude has gone off separately to do a similar quick tour of the rock.

NOT Ayer's Rock. Mt Connor, which you see about 100km out from Yalara

Spike at Mt Comnnor

The dogs at the rock lookout from the campground

Judith at the rock



Robert at the rock

 

The rest of the crowd at the rock

More crowds just waiting for the sunset