Weather: 33 degrees C / 92 degrees F (and not a cloud in the sky)
We woke up this morning, went in the bathroom to attend to our morning ritual of brushing of the teeth, and Hilary noticed she left her toiletry bag open. An army of ants must have been coming down with a cold or something because they went straight for Hilary’s “Cold-eze”. She had to rinse out her whole bag! Her hair gels and soaps were swarming with the suckers.
We went to check-out and mentioned it to the woman behind the counter, hoping for a discount on the room, but she just said, “Ts. Yeah … there’s been a lot of rain lately, and it’s hard to keep the bugs under control.” So, if anyone reading this is going to Cairns, avoid the Coral Tree Inn! Ha! I showed them!
We took a plane to fly to the Outback (for a little variety in our trip). Specifically, we went to a giant rock in the middle of the dessert. This big rock, called Uluru (oo’ luh-ROO) by the local Aborigine people is 348 meters tall in a place where everything else is relatively flat!When we got off the plane, it was surprisingly pleasant out, which was a good thing, because we had to walk on the tarmac to our gate. The air felt very dry and there was a warm breeze.
The airport shuttle brought us to our room for free! Since the entire town of Ayers Rock is owned by one resort, everyone at the airport is going to the same place.
We got to our new room, and it felt like I was back on my 7 th grade class camping trip! We had two sets of metal-framed bunk beds (which my feet hung off of) and an all-tile floor. Hilary and I had to sleep separately for our entire stay. We had a friendly HUGE bee in our trash can outside our room, and it was thrashing about.
We took our first bus tour at the Olga Mountains after putting on tons of Survivor© brand bug spray and 30 sun block. I finally had a chance to wear my outback hat (which looks like a bonnet with no flowers on it. :(
Our tour guide, Shane, was a half-hour late which cut into our tour time, but we stopped off at a lookout once we got going that made up for it. The view was great! 
You got a real sense of depth with all the layers of trees shrinking into the distance until this giant series of rocks jut out of the ground. There was much more vegetation in central Australia than I thought! There were also more black flies than I thought! They were relentless in trying to find moisture, so they collectively attacked my eyes, nose, and mouth. We all were doing the “Australian salute” which involved swatting flies away from our faces.
After the lookout, we went back in the van to get a closer view of the Olgas. Shane gave us the current theory of their existence. Basically, there used to be an inland sea in Australia, when the plates shifted upward, mountain ranges formed around the sea, but because plants weren’t invented yet, massive erosion ate away at the mountain and filled in the ocean, but all of the sediment created pressure on the lower layers, which caused them to solidify. After the plates shifted again, causing the underground rock layers to bend upwards and distort. Erosion then ate away at the softer soil on top, leaving exposed the harder rocks beneath, which was what we were looking at the top of. The hard rock extends beneath the ground for future generations to see (millions of years from now).
After our geology lesson, we walked up a trail through the Walpa gorge. It was 2.6 kilometers, which had to be like, 206 miles or something like that. I’m getting the hang of this metric system!
The scale of the mountains were hard to capture with pictures but its tallest peak is about 200 meters higher than Ayers Rock, putting it at 548 meters above the ground. Not too shabby! I tried to capture the texture of the rocks because there were missing chunks and shattered, huge pieces below.
We hurried back to the room (or camper’s cabin, if you prefer) and got ready for the sounds of silence dinner. The only thing that exists in this area was the resort itself. Without it, no one would live there, so we didn’t have to be bussed far to get to a secluded area overlooking the Olgas and Ayers Rock (Uluru).
We ate canapés (emu, kangaroo, Salmon, and pesto) and drank champagne, and watched the sun set. I had two glasses of champagne and a beer by the time we sat at our table, so needless to say, I wasn’t exactly walking straight.
Sunset picture
The view from our table
We sat with some English tourists and ended up having a great time! They were so nice and it was interesting to hear what they joked about and how they viewed world politics. It turns out that they were following our recent presidential election very closely, hoping Bush would lose. I was hoping world politics wouldn’t come up while we traveled, though. They were from Oxford and were very enjoyable dinner companions.Before the food, there was a didgeridoo player (playing some AC/DC we found out later). She explained the instrument and told us it was not used by any Aborigines in central Australia. The dinner was great! Much better than the Tjupkai we experienced last night. Dinner included Kangaroo, Lam, Barramundi (fish), Crocodile, and Chicken. It was all good!
After dinner, when it was really dark, an astronomer introduced himself and showed us the Southern Hemisphere’s constellations, which were very bright in the Outback sky. We saw two galaxies with the naked eye! And we saw the Southern Cross for the first time. Saturn was also visible and through a telescope, you could see its rings. At one point, they asked us all for a moment of silence so we could hear how quiet the outback is! There was absolutely no sound … and then … someone farted. Everyone couldn’t remain silent after that.
We got back very late, but it was worth it. This was definitely a highlight of the trip. We have to get up early tomorrow morning for sunrise, but I’ll let you know how we make out.
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