Uluru - AKA Ayers Rock

On the road to Uluru we’ve seen Mount Eduard, and we thought (at first) it was the Uluru. Good thing we had the Lonely Planet book to set us straight!


(Mount Edward)

If you don’t know, it’s kind of easy to confuse.
The open area is so huge that we had a half circle rainbow!


(half circle rainbow - the first I've ever seen)

And when we stopped for gas we could see the sunset on the mount Eduard thing.


(sunset on Mount Edward one)


(sunset on Mount Edward two)

We actually have a lot more pictures of Mount Edward, because at the time we thought it was the Uluru.
We got to Uluru very late, and went to find a place to park the van.
At 5:30 am the next morning we needed to be up and awake to see the sunrise on Uluru. Here’s a photo of the sunrise.


(Sunrise at Uluru, at about 5:30 am!)

There’s no photoshop, it’s just the color the thing has under that light (and despite the clouds)
Compare it with the color at 9:00 am


(Uluru after the sunrise - not so cool as about 4 hours earlier!)

Or at 17:00


(Uluru at 17:00 - notice the different colours? And at night it is simply black! Uauuu!)

Completely different.
And then we went for a 10km walk around the mount. It took us about 3 hours, and 2 liters of water.
If you decide to do it, be sure to take a hat, a fly net (to put over your hat and face) and plenty of water. It wasn't a sunny day as you can see in the pictures, but still I was sweating like a pig (and I'm in a relatively good shape).
And the flies! I think all the flies in the south hemisphere were at this place! It was horrible. You can solve it bu buying a hat / face net that you just put over your hat and has some sort of lace that ties around your neck. Another advice you'll thank me dearly later.
Here are some photos


(drawing of a leaf, I think)


(natural cave on the side of the Uluru - the natives used to find shelter under these natural rock formations)


(waterfall - One can only imagine how is the top of this monstrous rock because you're not allowed to go up there, but I imagine it as a lost world, full of trees and weird animals!)


(the rock - as you can see, the geological "breaks" are vertical, when they should be horizontal. Clearly something of great strength was at work here - maybe some aliens?)


(the stone face - can you see it? It looks mad!)


(the Dingo!)

No, it’s not a dog, it’s a Dingo. Which is a kind of wild dog. They say they’re a bit dangerous, but this one didn’t even looked at us…


(the side wall that connects to the lake)


(the lake on the base of the rock)

And this was it. The great walk around the Uluru, or Ayers Rock.
The trails are very well marked, and it doesn't matter where you leave your car. There is a visitors centre nearby. Not too interesting though. You have a bunch of very old native people that are put there to make arts and crafts. Personally I felt sorry for them.
In the main parking lot there is some stairs that lead to the top of one of the rocks. They were closed the day we were there because of the wind and the rain, but when the weather allows you can go up the stairs (for a small fee). This is the only place where you can do this because this huge rock is sacred in the local culture. You're not even allowed to photograph many of the parts of the trail.
As we came to understand, there is a road that goes round the thing. The view is pretty much the same you get if you walk, so if you don't feel like walking for 10Km, just get in your car, turn the AC to the max and drive around it.
We thought that we should walk, because we were there, and because we thought it was cool to tell our friends...

The Olgas

The Olgas is another rock formation that has appeared at the same time as Uluru (many thousands of years ago, when this part was under a sea). But differently from the Uluru, the Olgas is not sandstone. The Olgas is that kind of stone that is kind of a conglomerate.
The 6km walk was much better than the Uluru one.
Here are some photos:


(the beginning of the trail)


(on the distance, one of the climbs we had to make)

Once again, don't forget the hiking shoes, the hat, the hat / face fly net and, ofc, the ever so precious water!
We didn't have water with us, but fortunately we found a fountain in the middel of the trail. Some locals were drinking the water so we thought there wouldn't be too much of a problem. And there wasn't. But it's never a good idea to do that...


(the artistic detail of the reflexion of a rock in a rain pond - so beautiful!)


(another impossible climb)


(part of the canyon)


(yet another part of the canyon)


(almost at the top you can see the lost world!)


(the lost world up close - not the Jurassic park lost world, but the lost world from the cartoons called lost world)

After getting at the top we realized we wouldn't have time to get to the end of the trail. We had to go back to Alice Springs to take the flight back the next morning, and Alice Springs is 500Km away from this place and there are no European Highways...
When we were coming back we saw these huge lizards! How would you like to find one in your path?
I can tell you they are much more afraid of you than you are of them!


(2 meter lizard)


(two meter lizard again)

And that was that!
Just to finish, if you don't have a lot of time to be around Uluru and the Olgas, don't take the 10Km walk around Uluru. Take your car, and save the time to walk at the Olgas. It has a lot more places to explore. I was sorry I didn't do that so I'll have to go back there some day.

We almost didn't make it back!

Well, I’m going to tell you about the last day at the Red Centre.
As I’ve said before, we went to the Olgas (it has another name, but it’s very strange and I can’t write it) on our last day.
As a result we kind of got tight on time. We had to go back to Alice Springs that night, sleep there, and take the flight back to Melbourne the next morning (at 9:00 am), so not too much slack to get stranded anywhere. At the time is seemed extremely idiot not to visit the Olgas. We were already there, and God only knows when are we coming back to this place, right?
So at 18:00 we were still in Uluru – notice that everything in Australia is measured in thousands of Kilometers, and not in hundreds or tenths as it is in Europe – filling up the tank of our vehicle/accommodation.
At the gas station I asked the guy if it was ok for us to reach Alice Springs still that day, because there aren’t that many gas stations along the way from Uluru to Alice, and these people have the nasty habit of going to sleep at around 21:30 every day. The guy said “sure! In this place in the middle of the way you have a big station that is always open.
My mind was set to rest.
We got on our way, and about 85km after Uluru we came to this gas station that had free camping grounds for people like us, so we decided to stop. Have a nice dinner and a well deserved shower.
With all this we spent one hour and a half, but now our stomach were full and we were felling cleaner. It was 21:30 and the gas station the other guy had mentioned was still over 100km away, so we got on the road again (not filling the tank by the way).
At the same time a huge thunder storm started. Lots of rain, lots of lightning all around us on the road.
We kept going and finally we arrived at mid way to the said gas station that would provide us with enough fuel to reach Alice Springs. As you can guess, it was closed. It was 22:30, and the f****** place was closed until 7:00am…
Now, we had maybe a bit over 1/4 of a tank, and 200 more km to go to Alice Springs. The alternatives were to stay at this place and sleep until 7:00, fill the thing up and try to make it to Alice on time for our flight, try to make it to Alice anyway (it seemed at the time that the fuel could be just enough) or try to reach the next gas station (we’ve determined that this one was about 108km away), hope it was open the next morning at 7:00 and then we could be on our way.
We decided for the second option. So we went on our way.
As it happens on many 20 year old vehicles, the last half of the tank tends to go faster than the first half, and immediately became evident that reaching Alice was out of the question, and that probably it would be kind of hard to reach the next gas station…
Remember that it is pouring outside, and that there was a huge lightning storm. Roads tend to fill up with water around here in these circumstances, so if we stopped on the side of the road there was a 50/50 chance that we’d be in a floodway…
I reduced the speed to approximately 50kph and so it took us nearly 2 hours, but we’ve reached the next station, running on fumes I’m sure.
Lucky enough the place had a free camping site as well, and it opened at 7:00am. We managed to get some gas and reach Alice Springs at around 8:20.
We had only time to drop off the van at the rental place and call a cab.
This was as close as I ever got to losing a plane!

King's Canyon

The next day we’ve decided to head on to the King’s Canyon.
The weather was terrible, with the promise of very heavy rains.


(the road ahead and the sky, menacing to fall on our heads - if we only knew!)

And after about one hour of driving we turned to the King’s Canyon road, and found one of the floodways (pieces of road that are built in the middle of streams or even rivers that get filled with water whenever the rain is heavy). Remember that we were driving a 2WD van!


(crossing the river... I mean road... I mean river... I mean road... It was in fact a river, but it was also a road... you figure it out!)

And the water rose up to the middle of the wheel!


(the fruit van / hotel almost starting to float)

But finally we arrived, intact, and the rain subsided for a moment, so we were able to enjoy the scenery:


(the beginning of the King's Canyon trail)

The canyon is somewhat similar to the grand canyon on the US, but smaller (both in hight and in length).
The advantage is you can stroll around and see a lot of it in a few ours, and it is not less spectacular!
You have lots and lots and lots of marked trails you can follow without the risk of getting lost.


(a little more of the trail we've followed)

I do advise you to put on some very comfortable shoes. I would even go further and say you should take your hiking boots or hiking trainers. If you don't have them, just buy them (preferably before you get to Australia, everything costs twice the normal price!).
You will thank me for this piece of advice later!


(when we reached the main canyon)


(yet again, when we reached the main canyon)

The King's Canyon has the main canyon in which a river is always running, with a few waterfalls and natural pools where those not cold go swimming, but it also has smaller, narrower lateral canyons. some just big enough for you to walk through, other not big enough for your foot. All run from the top to the bottom of the formation.
On the top the landscape is pretty diverse. From huge arid flats to green spotted hills, but one of the most impressing landscapes was the part where we could see all these little mounts not raising more than one or two meters from the plain.
It almost looked like they were man made.
Enough talking. I'll leave you with the pictures which are far more interesting than my observations!


(a lateral breach on the canyon)


(the trail around the small mounts on top of the King's Canyon)


(the lateral wall that accesses the bottom of the canyon - look at the stairs hanging precariously on the flat wall!)


(a rain water pool on top of the canyon - many animals depend on these to survive)


(a nice waterfall to a natural pool and a bunch of really crazy people bathing)

And then the rain came again!
Heavier than before. And a huge thunder storm too!
We had to run down to the fruit van for cover. I was afraid we were lightning struck!!!

Transportation and accommodation

First I want to talk about our means of transportation and the place where we’ve slept.
To be different, this time we’ve decided to act like a snail. We’ve decided to bring the home on our backs!After lots of research (to find the cheapest snail shell) we’ve settled with a company called “wicked campers”.
To be nice, I’ll just say that the thing looked like a fruit van that had been left parked overnight in a sketchy part of town on a thursday night.
The inside looked the same. Everyone using it before us has written something inside the van.
(wickedcamper 1)


(wickedcamper 2)


(wickedcamper 3)

In the end it was very cool! Whenever we were sleepy we would just change drivers, or stop somewhere, and take a nap in the back.
In the end, when we almost got out of gas while trying to get back to Alice Springs to take the morning flight, it was really useful.
We just drove as far as we could with the little gas left in the tank and stopped at a gas station 100km away to sleep until dawn when we got gas. But that is another post!

The meteor craters

Our first stop was this site that has 12 meteor craters.They’re not so spectacular as the one in Arizona, but still it was very cool!To get there, we had to get into a mud road which was spectacular:


(the wide orange to red dirt road that never ended)

We were not supposed to take our van on this road because it was not a “sealed” road – amazingly, it’s like the 3rd main road in the territory!And look at the speed limit on it!


(110Kph no matter what car you're driving? You ahve to be joking!)

110 kph? Are they crazy? We did it more at 40 kph. We wanted to keep the car intact!And finally we reached our destination


(one of the meteor craters - the bigger one)

You can't actually see it because we were on the edge of it, and because nature has taken command over the soil, but this is an actual meteor crater. A piece of outer space has fallen into earth and made this huge hole (as well as a bunch more around it) on the ground!If you dig enough you'll probably find some or the entire space rock that buried itself in this place a few thousands or millions of years ago.Not as spectacular as the meteor crater in Arizona, US, but incredible nevertheless.And it was so cool! You can even camp overnight in this place. You just need to put money in an envelope and down in a metal box that sits at the beginning of the trail, and sign a book.

The Red Centre Road Trip - Intro

As I said in an earlier post, I was living in Melbourne with my girlfriend, studying at the Melbourne Business School, and we were traveling as much as we could.
This description is about one of the most anticipated road trips we took while in Australia.
A trip to the red centre and the world famous Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the Olgas.
If you're planing on taking this trip, my advice is to rent a nice camper or a cheap camper (as we did) and beware of the lack of gas and cell network. It is fine if you take your cell phone on the road with you, and or your laptop with the USB internet dongle (you can buy one for ~$30 AUD with Vodafone or Optus, the local carrier), but expect not to have a signal for almost all the journey.
In fact, if you are an Internet addict, forget about it. Just connect via Wi-Fi at your destination or in some places along the way.
Once again, there are some cool pictures and my own observations. Feel free not to read the text and just look at the images.