Early Sunday, Sydney...
Up early (I awoke at the first signs of dawn, took a shower and headed out for a walk... Sydney does nor rise early, at least not in the Rocks on a Sunday morning. There were lots of people about, mostly public workers cleaning streets or getting the street market area ready, but no coffee in evidence, and no stray wifi hotspots...
I return to the B&B, where the ladies were more or less ready, for breakfast in their garden... The breakfast was wonderful, eggs cooked to order, bacon, tomatoes, plus toast, cereal, fruit and juice... Properly fortified, we grabbed our over night bags (we left most of our luggage at the B&B) hailed a cab and headed for the airport, and Ayers Rock...
We checked in, then headed for security... It was a bit different... Belts and shoes on, but iPad out, and a notably, no one checked ID... Once through, I was selected for pad rub down... They are looking for nitrate residue... I have seen it used in the US as well... Nitrates are a key component in most explosives, but also in fertilizer... I understand that walking across a recently treated lawn could set the thing off. I had not walked across a recently furtilized lawn, nor had I been playing with random explosives, and was allowed to continue.
Once at the gate, I pulled out my laptop, and found a free wifi connection, uploaded the blog entry from the flight, the first of the photos, and did a cursory check of my email accounts... They called our flight before I could finish my second blog post, (this being the third blog post) or tie the uploaded photos to the blog.
Now aboard Virgin Australia Flt 1167 headed towards a big red rock... It feels like a short commuter flight, but in fact is 2.5 hours and a time zone away.
I have a window seat, and get to watch a as first Sydeny, then the Blue Mountains fade into the red dirt of the outback. Now, a hour and a half or so into the flight, we are passing ( ) lake... A classic mostly dry dessert lake with no outflow... Strangely familiar to someone from the American southwest... as the lake passes below, it quickly becomes quite hazy, either clouds or fog... I can't really tell, and gets a bit rough. Now a half hour later... The sun is out although I can see clouds, both high and low about as well. Here the land is bright red, with little vegetation, and from the air, lots of dry water courses... Why is it the effects of water on land scape are most visible in an air landscape? We have now been in the air for 2 hours, (i think we just srarted our decent) and for the first and for the first time since the Blue Mtns, an hour and a half ago I saw a sign of human occupation... A small town... Likely less than 100 people... There have previously been the occasional track... The scar from a dirt road, but nothing else... This more than anything may define the outback.
Ayers rock now out the window below... As identifiable, as striking as expected... Electronics need to be off... Or as the cabin stewart said, "All electronic equipment must be touched off" .... More later...
We are now safely at Ayers Rock Resort... Not unlike what I would expect if you took Yosemite's Ahwahnee, the Yosemite Lodge, and Camp Curry, and transported them to the outback next to a big red rock placed on a big round about... (There is also "Longitude 131, The very exclusive resort, not on the loop, reportedly, $2,200 per night, 2 night minimum, and no, we didn' stay there, and oh, yes, it is a tent camp) It is all about the place, Uluru, and it's lesser known sister Kata Tjuta... But visitor come, and visitors must be accommodated. Accommodations are a bit sparse, and somewhat expensive... This is the price you pay to see the rock, this place. On the other hand, we have a bar here... A roof, with mostly no walls, pool tables, cook your own Barb-be... Strangely, it does not feel like a created place... But you do have to have a room key or drinking card to drink there... I have a drinking card, likely to become a treasured souvenir...
Tonight we (all 4 of us) will have a sunset meal in the outback, watch the rock turn bright red, and the sky fade to black in a place with no man made light, and all the stars in the world. It will be a tourist experience, but a tourist experience based on a place not created for tourists. Tomorrow, Tina and I will rise before dawn, and head our to the desert, for "Desert Awakenings", a 4 wheel drive into the park, to watch the sunrise, and have a breakfast cooked outside over a camp fire. This too a created tourist experience... Again, at a place not created for tourists... The sisters will sleep in rather than join us...
Tomorrow afternoon we will fly back to Sydney, to our B&B, where our luggage awaits... For another night... And day, before boarding the Volendam, our ship, for our cruise to Melbourne, Bourne, and New Zealand.
Late report... Our sunset experience, was wonderful... Bus ride to an overlook, champagne and hor de voids... Then down to dinner... Good food, free flowing wine, a star talk... Table talk... Then home... On the way there we saw ferel camels... On the way back we saw a dingo... We shared a table with an American couple, now living in Melbourne, an English woman, a gent off a cattle ranch, and two Chinese women from Melbourne... Talk was good...
And an even later report... Desert Awakenings was better than expected, and fully worth the effort of rising well before dawn... A small 4wd bus took 16 of out a dirt track to a private overlook where they served breakfast as the sun rose... Then back aboard for a trip around the rock, with several short hikes, then a visit to the Park's cultural center... The thing that made it was our driver/guide Melissa... her knowledge, her stories were great... The tour was about the aboriginal view, stories, and relationship with Uluru. It turned out Desert Awakenings is run by Longitude 131, and currently is the only tour offered to people not staying at their resort. Then back to the hotel for a ride to the airport, for the flight back to Sydney
PS... I am writing these posts faster than I am finding places to post them... the first 12 photos are up on Picasa at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/108652524348276372534/Sidney12Photos?authuser=0&feat=directlink, but not yet linked to the blog
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