Day 69: More of Uluru and Kata Tjuta and then back to Curtin Springs (09/08/12)

First thing on the agenda today was to see the sunrise at Uluru. As this event took place at an unseemly early hour, we had to be up before sparrows to take our place in the throng. As Yulara is at least 20 kms from the sunrise-watching spot, it took us quite a while to get there, the more so because traffic was very dense and very slow. I admit to saying unkind words to the little Japanese youngster who stalled his hire car at the entrance to the car park – but I was roundly rebuked by Joke, of course, who hates me mouthing off at other road users.

When all was said and done, and the Australian – Nippon Friendship Treaty was signed again, we walked to the viewing area. There must have been at least 500 people there, all shivering in the cold breeze which blew across the land. 

The dawn crowd

The sunrise, when it came, did not hold a candle to the sunset, in my opinion, but it was a “must do” so we must did it. 

First sun on Uluru

Sun touches the sunward parts of Uluru

It strengthens its hold...

...Until it is no longer a sunrise, but a very cold early morning!!

Kata Tjuta seemed to put on a better show than Uluru,

probably because we were in a better position to see the morning sun light up on it.

The tour bus drivers soon felt their stomachs rumble. So they implemented a very effective procedure to gather their various flocks: they started their bus engines. 

Tour bus drivers conferring before they broke up the sunrise party to cart their loads back to the hotels.

The quiet of an Uluru morning, the birdsong, and the chatter in low tones around us was interrupted by the firing up of about 6 mighty engines. In a twinkling the crowd evaporated as the car crowd followed the bus crowd back to the car parks. As we walked off I glanced over my shoulder and I’m sure I saw Uluru winking as if to say: “Seen that before!”

Breakfast was next, and then we packed up to take the caravan with us to Kata Tjuta, 48 kms away. 

First close-up look as we drove towards Kata Tjuta.

The interesting thing there was that Kata Tjuta, or the Olgas are totally different to Uluru, or Ayers Rock. The Olgas are made up of a conglomerate rock made up of stones up to the size of a football. When you look at the sheer walls it seems as if they have been sliced through like a good Dutch bloedworst, it looks as if the individual stones were sliced as well to produce a smooth surface. Uluru, on the other hand seems to be made up of a rock of layers which peel off to produce a smooth surface.

We went to the Valley of the Winds and then to the Walpa Gorge walk. Very impressive to be among those towering walls indeed. 

Joke doing leg excercises to unstiffen her back in the Valley of the Winds

Looking through to the other side of the Valley of the Winds

This was the peculiar composition of Kata Tjuta's rocks

This was me doing my bit for geological research.

Pit stop between walks

I said: "Don't do it Joke, think of your back! Anyway it's much too heavy." But she would not listen, she had to try and roll this boulder.

Shady and sunlit sides of the Walpa Gorge.

Sunlit and shady sides, with my personal ray of sunshine in the foreground!

The dry desert air kept tickling my nose, and finally I couldn't hold back and let forth a mighty sneeze. As it echoed around the gorge, an enormous curtain of rock just let go and fell into the gully in a jumble. (I'm thinking of applying for a job as apprentice Dreamtime myth-smith!)

Desert flower 1

Desert flower 2

One thing we noted here and had been noting since Alice Springs and that was the number of French speakers among our fellow tourists. In Alice Springs we also noted the presence of many Dutch tourists, easily distinguished by their loud voices in the supermarkets. I don’t mean this in a nasty way, but every time there were loud calls across the aisles Joke and I would look at each other and burst out laughing: Dutchies! But the French were quieter, did not attempt to speak much English and seemed to come in family groups. At Kata Tjuta we did one of the walks in such a group’s vicinity, and as we walked down with Mum and the young boy walking behind us we overheard a most peculiar conversation. “Maman, qui sont ces gens étranges qui marchent devant nous?" "Tais-toi, Jacques, ils sont membres d'une tribu australienne la plus ancienne qui se disent les Nomades Gris."

Indeed ! Much amused we went back to our car and made our way past Uluru and Yulara to Curtin Springs. In honour of our last night in the NT we had a meal at the restaurant there. On the menu were various cuts of beef straight from their own farm. So my steak, so to speak, was still standing and mooing in the distance when we were there 2 nights before, and now it was on my plate.

Joke had a most strange encounter. At the loos, a lady said to her: “Are you Luuk’s mother?” It turned out to be Anne, Claire’s aunt, who was there with Russell, her husband, on their way to Uluru. 

Joke, Russell and Anne at Curtin Springs

They had been on the road for about as long as we had, and still had some time to go. They came over and we pulled out some chairs and had a good old chat. It turned out that they had been to Aileron too, and had been impressed with namesake Russell there.

Day 68: We meet the rock in the middle of Australia (08/08/12)

We got up at leisure and watched other people leave before us. Time for a shower, so we went to the windy shower block and did the best we could. The men’s shower was interesting – no doors at all! But we managed, mainly by putting on a burst of speed. You hardly needed a towel, you were blow-dried by the wind.

But the same wind stood us in good stead as we sailed the last 100 kms into Yulara. Uluru – Yulara: Uluru is the rock and Yulara is the “town”, and the “town” mainly consists of the Ayers Rock Resort. 

Our camp at Ayers Rock Resort. Red dust and a concrete slab.

We got there bright and early, set up, had coffee, and went off to have a look at this rock. We had glimpsed it on the way, but had not had a good look at it.

Well, it is pretty impressive, rising out of the flat plain as it does. 

A first look at Uluru

A photograph or two (or 100) is taken

Up close it looks pock-marked here and there

In fact The Rock has a very bad case of acne in places.

We got up close, taking photographs as we went and proceeded to circumnavigate it, stopping here and there to take a close-up look. We stopped at the place where you can climb the Rock. It took us quite a while to read all the notices and warnings and pleadings not to climb, all the while watching literally dozens of folk on their way up or down. That it is a dangerous undertaking, I can well believe – it is steep and smooth and if you lost your footing and got a good roll going it would be hard to stop without denting an essential part of your anatomy – like your skull! That it was not politically correct to climb was very obvious, but it was put to us as tourists in the words of bureaucrats and academics, not words that would be used by the traditional owners. This was a feature of Uluru, around the rock, at Kata Tjuta and at the interpretation centre: the traditional owners were glaringly absent and the information was a post-modern mishmash of scientific theory and traditional beliefs which had most likely seen the light of day in Canberra offices rather than under the Central Australian sun.

Anyway, I climbed up the Rock as far as the start of the chain, and then sat down to catch my breath. On the path right at the bottom there was a cleft in the rock with a long brown snake in it. It must have been pretty confused by all the comings and goings.

Intrepid climbers. A surprising number of them were foreign tourists.

This snake just wished everyone would go away. "Lisssssten, jussssst go away, willya" it hissed, "and leave me in peaccccce."

From my modest vantage point, I had a good view of Kata Tjuta, about 45 kms away.

Woman taking picture of foolish husband on rock.

Foolish husband on rock.

We continued around the rock in the hot afternoon sun, 

Aboriginal drawings in the "Boy's Cave"

Three old men sitting in the "Old Men's Cave"

The back side of the rock. Somehow it did not look as impressive

Juvenile desert oaks at the Interpretation Centre.

checked out the interpretation centre and checked where we would go for the sunset viewing. This has been completely orchestrated by the authorities, cars this way, buses that way. Little did we realise how many people would be there to see the sunset! There were hundreds of cars where we were, including heaps of foreign tourists.

It was like Friday afternoon rush hour at the Sunset Viewing Area.

When you arrive early at a sunset viewing, you have to wait a long time for THE MOMENT. If it is your first time, you don't really know what to expect. Anyhow, to while away the time you take pictures of flowers.

You take pictures of people taking pictures. Or is he checking his beard? (I'm being a bit snobbish here, and got my come-uppance the next night when we sat down together with this gentleman and his wife for dinner at Curtin Springs. My ears are/were burning..)

You take pictures of yourselves

Or of your spouses

Or have pictures taken of you.

Anyway, you get the picture. Back to the Rock, which now had only a couple of minutes of sunshine left.

It changed colour gradually. If you looked away and back it would look different.

Slowly the light leached away

Hard to see but the sun is now only shining on the top half.

A last ray or two.

And that's it for the day, folks. At this point a great stampede ensued as people got away as fast as they could.

We hung about some more watching night steal onto the scene. This was taken with Joke's camera.

After sunset we went home to a late supper and off to bed.

Day 67: Retyred, we drive to the Curtin Springs Homestead (07/08/12)

Bright and early, I raced off to Beaurepairs, the local Cooper Tyres dealer. There, a somewhat unhelpful bloke seemed to be unwilling to make a sale, he didn’t have my Coopers, but offered a more expensive set. I went around to Kmart and talked to a much more helpful chap there, who could fix me up with a pair of tyres that would go well with the Coopers on the back WITH a wheel alignment thrown in, altogether much cheaper than Beaurepairs. Irony was that he had to pick up the tyres from Beaurepairs!!

As he could fit me in at 10:30, I raced back to pick up Joke and we went off to the School of the Air again. This time school was in, and we walked in while the Transitions class (= Prep) was busy with a lesson. I lost contact with Joke for a while as she sat entranced listening to a lesson on symmetry. There were about 4 children in the class, each logged in to the school’s special interactive program via satellite connection.

The Transitions/Prep teacher reacting to an answer from one of the pupils. Two are shown on the monitor above. Note reflection of Joke watching spellbound.

School of 131 pupils. The furthest away lives about 1400 kms by road from the school

Wall in studio 2 which has been signed by all the famous people who have visited the School and talked to the children. Rolf Harris included.

Response to Joke's sign "Hi, from Tasmania"

The school serves an area of 1 million square kilometres (about 14 times the area of Tasmania, or 24 times the area of the Netherlands!!), and has an enrolment of about 130 pupils.

After the Transitions class there was a Year 8 maths class. At one stage the teacher had to out of the studio, so he turned the camera onto us visitors. Joke quickly held up a sheet of paper with “Hi from Tasmania” on it. Within a few seconds there were “hello’s” coming back through the speaker, and a comment in the chat box: “Wow, all the way from Tasmania!”

Next, the tyre change. This took until after 12 midday, but the result was well worth it. I did some shopping, marvelling again at how many Sri Lankans, Somalis and Sudanese – a lot of them refugees of one sort or another - were working in shops and businesses in Alice Springs, while working aboriginals were few and far between. It is extremely saddening to see that the welfare system has created an enormous group of helpless and dependent people who have little or no prospect of seeing themselves or their children ever rise above their desperate situation. I thought back to our conversation with Russell Guy, who blamed both the entrenched Canberra bureaucrats and the entrenched business and political interests in the Territory for the plight of the Territory Aboriginals.

Retyred, however, we had to get the caravan under tow, having received an extension from the caravan park. This we did at 1 pm, heading south for Uluru.

On the way we saw this mountain. It is Mount Conner rising 300 metres above the plain.

 That was 460 kms away, so we compromised and decided to go to a free camp at Curtin Springs Homestead, 100 kms short of Uluru. This would leave us enough time to enjoy another Territory sunset and the pleasures that a free camp have to offer. Once we were there we decided that we would spend a night at Uluru, and then spend another night at Curtin Springs on our way out. That way we could go and look at Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) at our leisure and still make some headway on our continuing journey.

We nestled among the trees at Curtin Springs Station

Mount Conner was still visible and was doing Uluru sunset imitations.

A flock of piyar-piyarpa fly around loudly discussing where to settle down for the night

Meanwhile kalaya walks around with his head down, wishing he could fly around with the other birds.

The piyar-piyarpa have found a good spot for the night and take in the last rays of the sun. What? You don't know what a piyar-piyarpa is? Well everybody knows it's a galah, you galah!

Rest and peace have come to Curtin Springs for the night.