Day 10 (July 22, 2016): Now, this place is special indeed!

Today set the record for our vacation early-rise: 3:30am.  We had a 6am flight out of Hobart to Melbourne, so it meant being out of the hotel at 4:30am.  Yesterday’s beautiful weather turned into a rainstorm overnight.  But that was ok, as we were flying out anyway.  However, the turbulent weather did give us a terribly rocky ride over Tasmania and the Tasman Strait.

Pre-dawn Qantas flight out of Hobart gave new meaning to turbulence

Melbourne is Australia’s second largest city, and named the most liveable city in the world.  As we descended to Tullamarine Airport at 7:15am, the highways were endless lines of pre-dawn headlights.

We collected our bags, transferred terminals and checked in for our Jetstar flight to Ayer’s Rock.  Jetstar is the low-fare option to Australia’s flag-carrier, Qantas.  Our flight was about half-hour late, and it was packed – except that we ended up with an empty seat in our row.  We had pre-ordered food, so we spread out, ate well, and enjoyed the flight.

Jetstar - no frills all the way!

 

Getting off the plane in Ayer’s Rock – or Uluru, as the aboriginals call it, you are struck by two things:  first, the redness of the soil:

Second, your first view of Uluru in the distance sends a shiver up your spine:

With just 26 hours to conquer this quasi-wonder of the world, we set out on our mission. There are two key sights to see in the area:  Uluru itself, and the Olgas – a clustering of 36 domed mountains.  We set out for the Olgas, which were 50km away. Upon arriving, we did an hour-long hike to a beautiful gorge between the two largest mountains in the clustering. The weather was perfect: sunny, blue skies and 24 celsius. 

Almost at the Olgas!
In some ways, the Olgas are more interesting than Uluru. 

The mid-afternoon sun's effect was magnificent. 

The sandstone wall of the gorge. 

Even in this dessert, the wildflowers were amazingly abundant!

 

From the Olgas, we drove 70km to Uluru.  The National Parks Service has a wonderful cultural centre within a stone’s throw of Uluru, which does an excellent job of explaining aboriginal culture, the significance of Uluru to the Mala people, and also the struggle for recognition and rights of aboriginals within Australian society.  Back in the 1980s, the Government acknowledged that Ayer’s Rock indeed belonged to the Mala and renamed it from Ayer’s Rock to Uluru accordingly.

After the cultural centre, we made haste to get a good spot in the ‘sunset viewing parking lot’, located about 10km from the mountain.  Sunset was at 6:16pm, and when we arrived an hour before that, the lot was already filling up.  People had chairs and picnic tables set up, and there were cameras everywhere:  everybody was psyched up to snap the perfect Uluru sunset picture.  As the sun stars to descend to the horizon, the lighting changes constantly.  The visual effect on Uluru can change dramatically from minute to minute.

And as if that wasn't amazing enough, this sunset was like dessert!

Watching the Uluru sunset was a dream come true.  And the perfect day and amazing sunset couldn’t have been better.

At 6:30pm, we left the viewing lot and drove to nearby Yulara, which is a vast complex of accommodation options and eating establishments to accommodate 5000 people.  The whole place is crazily overpriced, but then again, you are in the middle of the Australian Outback and there are no other options.  Gas was $1.20/litre in Tasmania;  here it is $1.75/litre.  Our shabby hotel room, which is something you’d expect to pay $50 for alongside the interstate in a rural park of Arkansas, went for $300! 

Our dinner options were: (a) to BBQ our own kangaroo meat, which came with a salad bar and a hundred rowdy young people from the bunkbed accommodations, or (b) to do an upscale buffet with lamb.  We chose the latter.  (Although the kangaroo idea was enticing.)

We called it a night around 11pm, as we need to rise ‘n shine in time for sunrise over Uluru.