The reason one goes to the Red Centre, Ayers Rock, or Uluru
as it has always been called by the Aboriginals, and is once again by
Australians (and tourists), is to see the sun set on The Rock. While the town
of Ayers Rock (and the airport) is referred to now as Uluru, that is actually
the Aboriginal name of the rock itself. It is considered a very sacred place by
the local Anangu People. The rock itself is a sandstone/iron formation upthrust
millions of years ago when what is now Australia was a gigantic sea. When the
sun is out, which is most of the time apparently (more on that later), it is a
giant reddish/orange mass, but at sunrise and sunset, it almost glows.
Apparently. In 2015 we were here as part of our tour, for one night, which was
apparently (that word again) the ONLY overcast afternoon in the entire summer
of 2015, meaning we didn't see the sunset. With no sun, it's just a big brown
rock. To rectify that, we decided to come back, only this time we had built in
some redundancy against clouds, staying two nights, to (apparently) insure we
would see a sunset.
There are no direct flights from Melbourne to Ayers Rock
(the airport), so that necessitated a 7:30 AM flight from Melbourne to Sydney,
connecting on to Ayers Rock. Larry had booked this through an Australian tour
operator at work who put us on Virgin Australia, a first for us, and one we
will probably look at repeating in future as we really liked the service. The
flights were smooth and uneventful, and we even had the Business Class cabin to
ourselves on the flight from Sydney. Almost like being on a private plane,
except for the 100 pairs of jealous eyes behind us!!! Although Ayers Rock is
located in the desert outback, they have had a LOT of rain lately. On Boxing
Day they got 270 MM of rain (5.5 inches), the equivalent of all the rain they
have had the past two years combined! This explains why everything looks so
green in the pictures!
You know the airport is not overly busy when it has one
runway, which also doubles as the taxiway. Planes land, roll out to the end,
turn around and taxi back UP the runway to the terminal. According to a sign
outside, the airport opens at 10:00 AM and closes at 4:30 PM. And we stepped
out of the nice, air conditioned plane into an oven!!! It had been hot in
Melbourne, and we knew it would be hot in Uluru, but 42 C
+....................... After collecting our bags we were bussed to our hotel,
Sails in the Desert, one of five, and the nicest one, that comprise the Ayers
Rock Resort. And surprising us not at all, our room was not ready.
 |
| Lawn and pool area, busy most days between 1 and 5 pm when everyone is taking a break from the hottest part of the day |
 |
| The lobby |
As part of the tour package we were booked into two
"sunset" dinners, Sounds of Silence on Monday and Fields of Light on
Tuesday. The dinner experience for both is the same. Bus out to an overlook for
sunset accompanied by sparkling wine. Bush Tucker (Aussie Outback delicacies)
buffet dinner, followed by stargazing, then return to the hotel. Things were
looking pretty promising when the bus picked us up at 6:30, with scattered
clouds, but more blue sky than clouds. Apparently (there's that word again) we
were actually going to see a sunset. Then we ran through rain showers on the
way out to the lookout. We are now 0-for-2 on sunsets on Uluru, but we did get
some great shots of the sunset behind Kata Tjuta, the OTHER sacred rock
formation about a kilometre away. But there was still stargazing, and while
there was cloud around, directly above was clear, and as the sun set, we did
see Orion (upside down in the Southern Hemisphere), the almost full moon, which
wiped out a lot of stars and an unknown planet that we figured would be
identified by our star talker. And it probably would have been, if we could
have seen it. While we were finishing dinner, the "scattered clouds"
decided to scatter directly above us. We are 0-for-1 on stargazing!
 |
| From the bus on the way to the sunset viewing area |
 |
| Deep sunset over Kata Tjuta; this is exactly the colour of the sky! |
 |
| The tables at the Sounds of Silence Dinner |
 |
| Sunset on Uluru |
 |
| Just after the sun went down. Not as exciting as Kata Tjuta |
The other Uluru "event" that we did not see last
time was sunrise. Not sure why we didn't see it, but I suspect only being there
for one day, and the fact one has to get up before some people have even gone
to bed might have had something to do with it. This time we were going "to
do" sunrise. So after finally getting to bed at 11:30 PM after NOT seeing
the sunset, we were up at 3:30 AM (!!) and on the bus at 4:30 AM to the sunrise
overlook. And the sunrise did not disappoint! It was worth getting up at that
un-Godly hour for the experience. Like people had said it would be, it was
truly magical!
 |
| At sunrise, deepest red |
 |
| Just after sunrise |
 |
| Kata Tjuta in the distance |
 |
| As we left to visit Kata Tjuta |
Once the sun had risen (which sounds kind of biblical, and
did feel like something of a religious experience!), we loaded back up on the
buses to head to Kata Tjuta, the other sacred rock formation. This is a
formation of twelve rock mounds, which represent the heads of the sacred
creatures from the creation story of the Anangu people. According to our
driver, who was pretty knowledgeable about the local folklore and customs, since
they only have two hands the Anangu
counting system is pretty simple; One, Two, Many. Hence Kata Tjuta translates
literally as "many heads". In fact, they are a series of rock mounds,
some higher than Uluru, composed mostly of iron, making them similar in appearance
to Uluru. The last event on our morning tour was a hike into The Gorge, which
runs between the two largest mounds. This is a rather steep and rocky (!!)
trail that apparently leads to a small pond. We didn't make it that far,
possibly having something to do with the fact it was 38 C at 9:00 AM and the wind
felt like a blast furnace in our face. Or maybe because we were functioning on three
hours sleep! Either way, the very real potential for a twisted ankle did not
appeal to either of us, so we headed back at the halfway point for the safety
of our air conditioned bus, where we discovered quite a few people who had the
same thought!! We got back to the hotel just in time to catch the breakfast
buffet, then crashed for a couple of hours of sleep, followed by some time in,
and around the pool.
 |
| On the way. Kata Tjuta was created differently from Uluru, hence the twisted configuration of the rock |
 |
| Monica beside one of the rocks that has fallen off the mound over time. Yes, she's wearing her mosquito net! And it came in handy again. |
 |
| Looking up the gorge. You can walk most of it, but it would take a long time and is both hot and windy. |
Feeling somewhat refreshed from our afternoon of R and R, we
were picked up at 6:45 PM for our Field of Light dinner. The Field of Light is
an art installation by a British light sculptor, Bruce Munro. It consists of over
50,000 LED lights connected by fibre optic cables and spread out over an area
the size of three football (or this being Australia, soccer) fields. The idea
is the lights come up as you have dinner and then you walk among the
installation. But first, there was the matter of sunset. You recall earlier we
mentioned we had built in some redundancy by staying two nights? Mother Nature
was having none of that. It was clouds to the horizon in every compass direction,
and it stayed that way! The star talker after dinner had a great sense of humour
and had everyone laughing as he pointed out where the various constellations
would have been, had we been able to see them! Final score, Sunsets 0-for-3,
and stargazing 0-for-2! As to the Field of Light, from where we had dinner, it
looked like a large city as seen from an airplane. Walking among them was
interesting, but nothing special, and in fairness, we were still pretty tired,
and it was still 38 C at 10:30 at night, which might have something to do with
our less than enthusiastic response. Either way, we were the first ones back to
the bus, and were lights out in our room before 11:00 PM.
 |
| One of the options for reaching the viewing and dinner area for Field of Light was by camel - no, we did not do this! It turns out that the camels that were originally brought to Australia have bred in the wild and have been exported to desert areas for military and caravan use, so most of the camels in northern Africa are actually Australian!! |
 |
| Sunset |
 |
| The field of lights. It looks better in the distance when you can get the groups of colours. We had hoped for a chance to view from higher up on a hill to get the full effect. |
Wednesday, back to Sydney to wrap up this trip! But first,
we sleep in!
