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Wilson's World Tour
When we booked our flights back in England, our helpful travel agent had us flying into Alice Springs and out of Ayers rock, he assured us it was one and the same thing. Once in OZ, we soon realised it was a five hour drive from the Alice to Ayers rock. Also by the time our flight touched down we missed the bus to Ayers rock. We looked into the price of flights but in the end decided to get a one way hire car, it didn't work out that much more than getting the bus or catching a plane and we reasoned we'd get to see a bit of the country.
We picked up our Toyota Corolla and set off on the drive. It was so hot that the air conditioning on the car couldn't cope with the heat, so we'd only have cold air about every ten minutes, the rest of the time it was like driving with hairdryers blowing in our face's !.
The drive took us about four hours in the end, we made good time due to a combination of not wanting to spend any more time in the car than was necessary and the fact that the AC seemed to improve the faster we went !. As we got closer to Ayers rock the sand became reder and pretty rugged. We also saw several mini tornadoes, whipping up the red sand !.
If your visiting Ayers rock, theres just one self contained resort where you have to stay. There are various hotels within it, from a $2000 a night luxury hotel down to $40 per person for a bunk room. We obviously opted for the bunk room, but that is still pretty expensve for shared accomodation. In fact th whole resort charges a premium, whether your having a beer or a meal, luckily for our budget, we would only be their for two nights.
One of the first things we did was buy fly nets, the heat was well into the 40's but made much worse by the constant annoyance of the flies, you couldn't sit anywhere outside without being constantly harrassed, even in the swimming pool.
The first night we shared our room with a French couple, they were really nice, but because they live in the South of France their used to the heat and as we went to bed with the lovely AC on, they then got up and turned it off !!!!
The next morning we got up at 0445 to hopefully see the sunrise over Ayers rock. On the way to the national park we stopped and had a great view fo Ayers rock silhouetted in the near darkness. We carried on and found the best place for watching the sun rise. We spent about an hour there and took it all in. We imagined the rock to be relatively smooth, but up close it's really pitted but quite beautiful.
We then had a great breakfast at the Aboriginal centre and learnt a bit about the rocks spiritual significance. We then met our Aboriginal guide, Mark ! (honestly he was a really cool old Aboriginal guy who didn't really speak English, but for some reason has an English name !) We also had a young Oz guy with us who was a translator for Mark. We set off into the bush around the base of the rock We were showed how Aboriginals used to make fire, make bush glue/gum, how they hunted with spears, but prehaps most interesting Mark shared with us some of his ancient stories which have been passed from generation to generation and vividly explained some of the formations on the rock with colourful characters including the 'blue tounged lizard man' ! They also explained why it is disrepectful to climb the rock and why Aboriginals never do.
We then went back to the resort and tried to escape the flies untill sunset. At which time we went on a camel trek
and saw the rock from a differnt perspective. The camels were really cool, we imagined they might be smelly and spit at us, but they were really well trained and sat patiently for us to mount up. For some reason Sam and I had the biggest camel, as we got on, he lurched up and we hung on for dear life. Once up it was really comfortable and a great way to see the desert. During the evening we learnt that Austrailia has the largest population of wild camels in the world ! Infact alot of the Arab countries import camels from Austrailia because they are the purest stock. They were originally bought into the country before the railways existed to carry loads across the country. They then helped in the construction of the railways, but did themselves out of a job once it was completed. The government ordered all the camles be put down, but the camel handlers refused and let them loose in the desert where they now flourish.
The next day we flew out of Ayers rock Airport to Cairns and were glad to be rid of the flies and the heat !.
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