Uluru and Alice Springs

About to get very wet...

Over the next few days we took it easy apart from a few night out. One night we went up to Newtown and had a few drinks (Cocktails) in Rach's old Uni haunts and some Vietnamese food – not sure about how much we'll like the food in Vietnam. Another night we had a big one, meeting some friends of Rach and Broph, two of whom were leaving to move to Brisbane. We ended up at some late night pub - The Crow's Nest - with live music, hitting Jagerbombs and the dancefloor – it's quite a famous place for being a bit of 'spit and sawdust' but we both really enjoyed it.  

Rocking Out to Bon Jovi

Me, Rach and Pip - Posing

Lisa and Alex - Last night in Sydney

We went on a speedboat trip around the harbour which was our Christmas present from Rach and \Brophy - got some lovely views of the harbour and got totally wet as well...

We met up with Yuri from the Salt Flats trip for a night out. It turns out that he lives next door to Rach's old flat so we met him at the station and went into town as it was the opening night of the Sydney Festival. We wandered around, checking out all the different stages. Basically they have music and dance and stuff in different parts of the CBD. One place had a massive multimedia show projected onto the office blocks with a DJ, another had a big stage where people were playing the ukelele. Bindya got refused entry to a beer tent and the bloke wouldn't take our teacher cards as ID.

Yuri and Bindya and Arrested Development

The next time she just waited outside... The main event of the evening was seeing Arrested Development on the main stage – we got there just in time for, 'Mr Wendel', and, 'Everyday People'. After that we went to a few pubs in the Rocks (some cheesy places along with the oldest Pub in Sydney), had a pie the went back to Bondi and had another drink before home.

Rach dropped us off at the airport and we had already checked in for all our flights so headed straight for the departure gate. We had a brief security check but no-one asked to see our passports or ID or anything. Flight to Melbourne was not long – the 'plane was small and cramped, usual budget sort of stuff. We got into Melbourne about 8ish – it was Melbourne Avalon airport, which is the special budget airport – jumped on the shuttle bus to the city which was nice and took about an hour. It was raining. Our hotel was a 10 min walk down the road from the bus station and we were both pleasantly surprised at how it looked. We'd got a budget deal from the internet of 68 dollars for our room but it was large, had a TV and minibar etc. We dropped our bags and headed straight out to where we'd planned to have dinner – a place called, 'Funky Curry', which we'd seen last time but was shut. We got a tram up there and found the place no bother. We were the only people there but the owner was Indian and our food was decent – as usual we over-ordered. Sufficiently fed we went straight back to the hotel for bed as we had an early start.

Our wake-up call was 4:15 a.m. We made it to the bus station and got on just in time as it was very busy. Three girls didn't have a seat and I was just starting to feel sorry for them when they got on a whole empty coach by themselves and it set off. We didn't have much to do when we got to the airport as we were already checked in so we just sat there missing our bed for a bit. Usual flight – I was desperately trying to sleep as I had a big drive ahead but I had the usual problem on a budget aeroplane of not having a high enough head rest so everytime I start to drift off, my head snaps back and I wake up again. I'm sure they use a similar sort of sleep deprivation technique in Guantanemo Bay. The flight was longer than we expected – about 3 hours – just gives an idea of how vast this country actually is – and we arrived just before 9 as the clocks went an hour behind as well. We went to the car desk and sorted out our wheels for the week. The woman serving us was fairly clueless but we got through it and due to the fact that we were using Bindya's card and my driving license, we hired a car under the name of Mr Bindya Chauhan of Whitley Bay. As we were doing this, the other woman at the desk was talking to us and she asked if we were seeing Alice Springs or just going to Uluru. We said that we were coming back to spend a day at Alice. “There's nothing to see here!”, she told us, “It's a really uninteresting place.”. We suggested that she work at the tourist information desk instead. Our car was small but OK, even though we had to get the instruction manual out to find out how to start the engine (you had to push the clutch in before turning the key...). We drove into Alice first to get some supplies and breakfast. It was already baking hot outside so we turned the air con on which blasted hot air n our faces. Bindya told me that it takes a little time for it to get cold. We bought a bit of stuff for lunch on the move and some water but the bottle shop was closed (it was 10 a.m.). Breakfast at Hungry Jacks then we hit the road for Uluru – a good 450 kms away. I got the wrong direction at first but we soon realised and turned around. The air con wasn't getting any colder and we were now both dripping in sweat so, after trying every possible combination of knobs and dials and looking through the instruction manual again, we decided to take it back. We got it replaced no bother for the next car up the scale – just economy, not super economy – and felt the blast of a proper air con. Finally hitting the road at 11:30 we started our long drive. Not a lot to say about the next 4 hours.
I kept seeing burned out wrecks at the side of the road which reminded me of Wolf Creek and the speed limit was 130 but apart from that it was long, boring, flat roads for 4 hours. It was broken up by a petrol station that had a model of a giant echidna and a place where we took photos of some mountain in the distance. We got to Yulara, which is where the resort is, about 5ish. We had a four bed room that we hoped was going to be empty but we discovered another person's stuff in there – a Japanese man by the looks of the stuff – so we dumped our bags and explored the resort a bit. There's about 4 or 5 different hotels on the resort, of varying cost from the campsite to a luxury 5 star place. We had the budget hotel, paying $45 each for a bed in this room, no frills. We had originally planned to stay 3 nights but changed it to 2 as we were going to spend the third in Kings Canyon instead. We bought some stuff for dinner in the supermarket then went out to the rock to catch sunset. Tickets were $25 each for a three day pass. There was a particular spot to get the best view for sunset where there is parking etc. so we went there. There were quite a few people there but it didn't feel crowded. We sat and chilled for a while, watching the light change and taking photos – very beautiful.

We headed back to the resort and made our dinner. By the time we'd finished with all that it was late so we headed back to our room. Our Japanese friend wasn't there (we had met him earlier but he wasn't very chatty) so we hit the sack. About 4 or 5 in the morning he came back to the room, put away a tonne of strange-looking photographic equipment and went to bed. We decided that he was either some sort of nocturnal pervert or keen on astronomy.

We skipped sunrise as we were so tired and made it back into the park about 12ish. We have developed the knack of heading out for our sightseeing when it is the hottest part of the day. We went to the cultural centre first where we read all the stories about the rock and what the different holes and shapes were – it is like a big book with different stories written in to it. There was lots of info about traditional aboriginal life, their customs and food etc and an art gallery – very nice but way out of our price range – we spent a good hour or two having a look at all this before heading closer to the rock. We did a very brief walk but it was insanely hot. There were lots of flies as well which were particularly keen on our faces, which got annoying. It was good to look at the rock and try to work out which bits were which story.

All the holes tell a story about a fight here between a snake and some kangaroos or something

We went back to the resort for a dip in the pool to cool off, stopping briefly in a deserted car park for Bindya's first driving lesson.  I thought I was great at this, Neil looked scared and I felt like I was on Top Gear!
Our room-mate was still in bed trying to sleep. He told me, in broken English, that he was a 'skywatcher' and that's why he was out at night and sleeping during the day. We went back out to the park for sunset at The Olgas - Kata Tjuta (in English 36 headed)-  another big load of rocks sticking out of the desert. It took about 40 mins to drive there and on the way we saw some feral camels so stopped to take some pictures. Apparently there are hundreds of thousands of these things in central Australia.

Wild camels

We parked up and saw everyone else putting on their hiking boots and head nets, hats etc. then got out of the car in our shorts and flip-flops for the walk into the gorge. It was about a few kilometres across quite rough stones so we thought maybe shoes might have been a better idea but it was very pretty - totally different sort of rock to Uluru, like a massive aggregate. There was a little stream at the end with bushes and stuff so we stopped for a few photos before retracing our steps. We drove over to the sunset viewing place and watched for a bit but it got quite cloudy and we wanted to get back before it was dark – it was a good 40-50 min drive back and our car hire insurance would not cover us for driving in the dark. 

Bindya in her Lara Croft outfit...

Sunset at Kata Tjuta

We made it back without hitting any wildlife, cooked up a bit of pasta, had a beer at the bar and listened to the bloke there playing guitar and singing – he was very good and seemed to know every song there was – then decided to go for an early night as we'd have the room to ourselves. Unfortunately, 5 mins after we got in it started raining outside so our Japanese stargazer came back. We set the alarm for half an hour before sunrise and went to sleep.

Next morning the alarm went off at about 6, leaving us 7 minutes to get to Uluru if we wanted to get sunrise – our alarm is quite unreliable. We quickly threw some clothes on and jumped in the car and drove (obeying all of the local laws and speed limits) to the park. We got to see the sun rise behind Uluru as we drove and it was still beautiful when we got to the other side but Bindya was bitterly dissappointed that she wasn't there earlier. We took a little walk around the base of the rock to a watering hole and saw lots of rabbits as well as a big, black dingo running around in the bushes. There were some aboriginal cave paintings that we now knew how to decipher – some of it anyway... We headed back, just stopping for a bit to admire the view one last time, went home, showered and checked out.

Cave paintings

The waterhole

We went straight up to Kings Canyon next, about halfway between Uluru and Alice Springs but only connected by one sealed road so it took us a good 3 hours or so to get there. Our room there was better, just us two, with a TV and fridge.  When we put the TV on though, every channel had non-stop news about Brisbane being flooded - we recognised the XXXX brewery immediately...  It was insanely hot at this stage so we lounged around for a bit with the aircon on. We bought a few bits for dinner from the store and went out to a viewing area for sunset – this was very beautiful, just a strip of rock in the distance that contained the canyon.

We chatted to an English couple for a bit, mainly about how expensive Australia was etc. then went for an early night as we were pretty knackered. Next morning we checked out and drove down to the canyon for a walk. Again we left it a little late and it was around 11 when we got there. This time we brought proper shoes with us and the walk was very pleasant, lots of trees and birds, but we were absolutely soaking with sweat by the time we got to the end of the canyon. Pretty but not exactly spectacular. Next was the long, flat, boring drive back to Alice. Fun.

I decided not to take that route...

Five hours of this view on the drive back...

We got there at 4, just when we'd agreed to take the car back, but I realised that we had time to drop it at the airport in the morning before our flight so I went in and checked that it was OK. The Alice Springs Tourist Envoy was at the desk and she basically said that it was Friday night, she wasn't going to be cleaning the car until tomorrow morning anyway so I could bring it back then. We drove around Alice for a bit to find our next room booking. It turned out to be a small caravan. Bizarre but OK and luckily just around the corner from the Indian Restaurant we'd planned to go to. It was BYO so we went into town to get some wine, finding a place that did buy one, get one free. Excited by this we went up to buy them and the woman behind the counter asked me for ID. I don't think I've ever been ID'd, not even when I was 14, so was a little surprised but then I realised that it was standard practise, no matter how old you looked (and after all the driving, I was looking pretty old). I think it was also to back up the fact that there were quite strong rules in Alice about how much booze you could buy in one day and stuff, in order to try and control alcohol use among the large aboriginal community. Either way, we had to drive back to our caravan and get our passports before coming back for our booze. W e went out for our dinner and we have to say that it was the best Indian food we have had in Australia. The chef was new from India, apparently, so we left feeling very full and also a bit tipsy from the 2 for 1 wine offer.

Best Curry House in Oz

Next morning we dropped off the car, sailed through the airport, had enough time in Melbourne for a Hungry Jacks lunch and got the bus back from Sydney airport which took no time at all and was about 45 dollars cheaper than a taxi.

On our penultimate day in Australia we booked to go on the Sydney Opera House tour but Bindya's knee started playing up so we had to postpone it until the morning of our last day.  We got there for 11am and had the tour which was really interesting.  Our guide told us all about the history of the place, how it was built etc. as well as showing us around most of the rooms.  We couldn't go in the main hall as John Malkovich was in there practising some play or something.  It was fascinating to learn of all the problems they had building the place - the architect who won the design basically submitted what looked like a scrawl on the back of a beer mat and they started building it with absolutely no idea on how they were actually going to do it. 

Big THANKYOU to Aunt Evelyn and Dharmesh and Pratibha Bhabi for her wedding gift which was spent in Uluru. THANK YOU to Mira and Dharmesh for there wedding present whoch we spent at the Kings Canyon and Hemanti for her wedding present which we spent at Alice Springs. a Big THANK YOU  to Maria Christopher and family for her wedding gift which we put towards this (due to it being slightly drama related...)

Postcards all winging their way to you! xxx

PHOTO LINKS.....
Uluru part 1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=269131&id=547011402&l=8ad698a7a2

Part 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=269137&id=547011402&l=5d7accdc08


Opera house
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=269142&id=547011402&l=2e41059f75