Our Holiday to the Red Centre
We recently went on a long-weekend holiday to the centre of Australia, known as the Red Centre because of the colour of the dust that is everywhere. The full report is below, but the highlights are:
We flew up on a Friday from Sydney to Uluru (the Aboriginal name for Ayers Rock - it's generally referred to by it's "proper" name now). It's a 3½ hour flight, which to us Brits seems bizarre - how can you fly for so long and not leave the country?! At the airport we picked up our hire-car - a big 4-wheel drive Toyota Landcruiser.
Anyway, we arrived and checked into our accomodation. There's a purpose-built resort at Yulara, a few kilometres from the rock itself. There's a whole range of hotels and restaurants, from budget backpacker style up to 5-star. We stayed at the Desert Gardens, which is somewhere in the middle! The resort also has a bank, supermarket and souvenir shops, where Martin bought himself a proper hat (an Akubra - a well-known Australian brand).
Once we'd got settled in we went and booked ourselves on a walking tour the next morning (more on that later). We then decided to head off and take a look at this huge hunk of rock that we'd come all this way to see. The first thing you notice about Uluru is the way it completely dominates the skyline even from miles away. The area is very flat (just a few sand dunes) and wherever you are, you can always see Uluru looming up. The photo here should give you some idea of scale - that's a person in that little circle!
We drove into the national park (the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park) and up to the rock. There's a road which goes all the way round Uluru and we drove round it. As you can see here, the signs warn you about the local wildlife!
Once you get up close you realise how huge the thing is - photos rarely do justice to the scale of the thing. Also, there's much more texture to it than you expect. Most of the well-known photos make it look pretty smooth but there are lots of caves and cracks and holes in it.
Lots of tourists come to climb the rock. The local Aborigines have said that they prefer people not to - partly because the ground is sacred, but mainly because they feel it very personally if someone falls off and injures themselves (as people do every year, sometimes fatally). We decided to go along with their wishes.
We then did the classic tourist thing and went to watch the sun go down over Uluru. There's some words and photos about this here. After this we went back to the hotel and had dinner in the White Gums restaurant at the Desert Gardens hotel. And very nice it was too - we sampled some local wildlife (kangaroo, camel, crocodile etc.).
Next morning we had an early start to go on the walking tour we'd booked with Anangu Tours. This is an Aboriginal-owned company which organises several different walks around Uluru. The Anangu are the tribe local to the area. Our guide was an Anangu called Andrew, who spoke to us through an interpreter. It was a fascinating tour - Andrew took us through the bush from the Cultural Centre up to the base of Uluru. Along the way he showed us how to make bush glue (called "kiti") from the spinafex grass, how to throw a spear and told us several of the creation stories linked to the rock. Very interesting and we would urge anyone who visits Uluru to take one of these tours.
After the tour ended we took a look round the Cultural Centre and bought some craft items (little wooden animals) that have been made by local people. The whole centre has been put together really well.
The other main point of interest in the National Park is Kata Tjuta (otherwise known as the Olgas) - a set of domed mountains which look similar to Uluru itself. However, they cover a bigger area and are more interesting to walk around. Apparently they're also considered more sacred and important to the local Aborigines than Uluru. We went for a walk into the main gorge between the domes. Amazingly (given the general climate) there was a pool at the end of the walk! Here are some photos of the Olgas.
One fairly amusing point about the Olgas is that viewed from the right angle at the right time of day they look a lot like Homer Simpson lying on his back - as seen in the photo here.
One of the highlights of the holiday was the Sounds of Silence dinner (mentioned in this article). This involves being driven out into the middle of the bush where tables are set up. After drinks and canapes while watching the sun set over Uluru and Kata Tjuta to the sound of a didgeridoo, you have dinner - local stuff like kangaroo, emu and crocodile. After dinner the lamps are extinguished and an astronomer points out the constellations in the sky overhead. It was truly remarkable.
After a couple of days around Uluru we drove up to Alice Springs - which is a hell of a long way! Along the way we stopped off at a rest stop where we saw some emus and took a drive down an unsealed road, just to prove that the car could handle it! We also passed Mount Conner, which looks a lot like Uluru and apparently confuses some tourists!
After the long drive, Alice Springs was a bit of a disappointment. Pretty much a standard tourist town in the middle of nowhere really. Still, overall we had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to going back to the Red Centre before we leave Australia.