Camel Riding at Sunrise at Uluru NT

Tues 23 October 2012

Dave and I were up and off our air mattresses at 4am, getting ready to be at the bus stop by 5am so we could go on our big adventure; a camel ride in the coolest part of the day in Uluru country for $99 each. I have been so looking forward to this experience!

The early morning stars were lovely and clear, only Planet Venus was outshining them all. The dark clear skies were portents of an excellent viewing of Uluru Rock from atop a camel. The past few days have been very smoky from lightning strike bushfires, affecting scenery visibility.

On the way to the camel farm Dave didn't seem his usual chirpy early morning self. He just nodded when I asked him if he was ok; hmmm…..I should've smelt a rat then. I wondered if he was a bit scared of camels but he told me he wasn't. Ok……

We arrived at the local camel farm in the dark dawn and saw 16 magnificent camels in a long line, all saddled up and sitting majestically on the red dirt, with their cute big expression-filled faces held high. There were about 5 men dressed in bright red shirts; these were the guys who had been busy getting the beasts all ready for us. One was a photographer who explained how he'd be taking shots of us all on our adventure.

We noticed a cute junior camel in a yard nearby, and a guide told us it was an orphan, as its mother had been killed in a road crash and they found the baby camel nearby. It gave us a shiver when the guide told us that one person in the car that crashed into the camel was killed, and the others injured. So the camel signs on the roads around here are cautionary warnings!

Most of the 16 camels were to have 2 people on them, making it quite a big group for the cameleer main guide to instruct us all on the important art of mounting a camel, and then hanging on with legs out forward when the big beast is commanded to stand up.

The red shirt guys selected Dave and me to be on the tallest camel, Big Pete. Someone else got the noisiest one, another got the quietest one. Our Big Pete and some others had shade-cloth type bags over their noses, apparently to stop them eating the saddle on the camel in front of them. All the camels were tethered to each other nose peg to tail area.

It was quite scary when our Big Pete was being commanded to stand; the guides told us we would have the Best view of the lot because of his height. And the photos of us going up on the huge beast are so funny! I hope our family are embarrassed seeing us lurching slowly upwards on a big hairy beast; it feels like a huge effort for the camel to rise from the sitting position. (See photos)

We were the only ones who put our legs way forward like we were all told when it was camel-rising time, as we were all told we'd be catapulted off if we leaned forward, so I reckon we looked the silliest. A girl from Taiwan was the funniest as she freaked and covered her face as her camel went up. The happy look on her face when she was up safely was so good to see…we all looked so happily relieved on top of our beasts actually! Each one of us was out of our comfort zone but having fun.

Dave moaned when our Big Pete was up, saying his hips were suddenly killing him. A guide adjusted his stirrups but he still sounded a bit stressed sitting behind me on his saddle. Hmmm….strange for him!

Soon we were all in a long camel conga-line, weaving slowly across sand dune country with the huge Rock Uluru in the distance, being slowly lit up by the rising sun. And the beautiful colours of the desert sprang to life, with the brilliant orange-red soil and the lovely pale olive green of shrubs combining with the pale yellow spinifex grass. Sublime! The camels big feet were padding silently along with their happy campers on board, captivated by the whole experience.

Everything was going perfect, till Dave suddenly leaned forward onto my back and said "I've been up last night with diarrhoea and I don't feel good. I think I'm going to get sick!"

Oh hek! NOW he tells me, when we are on top of the biggest Tallest camel in the Central Desert!

An image popped into my head of Dave tumbling off the big camel in a faint and the whole tethered line of camels going helter-skelter in a panicked dash across the sand dunes! Oh no!

Quick as a wink, I said "Put up our hands!"

Two cameleers came running over, and one commanded our huge beast to sit down, which he did, lurching slowly and awkwardly downwards like strange hairy scaffolding. Poor Dave staggered off the camel and over to the edge of a sand dune, his head in his hands. He looked so pale and sick. I was told to stay on the camel, and my sick hubby was put on a quad bike that a guide was riding and he disappeared into the desert back to camp. I was so miserable at not being able to be with him, but there was no point in me being off the camel, given the circumstances. Nanna with her gammy knee in the desert a long way from camp is not a good look!

I tried to enjoy the rest of the adventure but photos show me looking over my shoulder and worrying. The scenery around Uluru from top of my big camel was sublime, and I did consider it could be a very peaceful experience, so did all the other tourists, going by the happy faces on them all. But I kept imagining Davey was being whisked away as some sort of medical emergency….I was being Penny Henny and thinking Heart Attack!

It was a relief when we slowly ambled back over dunes to the camel farm to find a floppy sad looking Poppy sitting outside on the verandah. Obviously he was going to be alright. Though he missed out on enjoying the magnificent feast of special beer damper bread and quandong jam. A guide had given him a bottle of electrolytes to drink.

We were taken back to our campsite by bus, first showing us the Medical Centre which fortunately was next door to us. So I led a bedraggled sad Dave across to the Centre where a nice little nurse checked him over, pronounced his blood pressure had gone too low and he was showing classic signs of dehydration. The stomach bug last night did not help, as he had been losing fluids. If he didn't look so sad with his shirt half hanging out and I had to tell him his fly was half undone, I would have slapped him for not telling me earlier!

He spent the next hour with a drip in him to rehydrate and give him some medicine for his painful tummy. Lying on the Medical Centre bed in air conditioning sure was better than the hot hot tent; it was now 41 degrees outside. I sat beside his bed and read a book while he went off to a blissful snoring snorkelling sleep.

Dave is now fine, and the Indigenous little nurse told him he needed to drink way more water than he has been. I always have been drinking lots of water up like a camel, now Dave has to do the same to keep his health good in the very hot dry weather we are experiencing here in the desert country.

We still have lots more beautiful desert country to explore.