Day 7 - Monday February 19, 2024 Ayers Rock

By Ellen Outten

The entrance to the airport

Welcome to Ayers Rock or Uluru.   Desert and brown and lower humidity, Amen! But it is 101 degrees fahrenheit.

We had to have our bags outside our room at 5:15.am this morning and left for the airport at 6:15!  Our flight was delayed 30 minutes but we arrived in Uluru or as some call it, Ayers Rock at 10:30.  

Lunch is on our own and we get back on the bus at 3:45 for a tour and stay to see sunset over Ayers Rock.

Here's the crazy thing, we were told to turn our watches and clocks back THIRTY MINUTES!!  That is crazy.  And when we fly the end of this week to Sydney, we turn our clocks forward one and a half hours!  It appears they have 30 minute increments in their time zone changes.

Coming into Ayers Rock.  It could be Sedona if it had more than one lump. That's Ayers Rock in the distance.


This is my kind of airport. Tiny! One runway and one baggage carousel.  Just park the plane anywhere.

Flies!  Bug spray excites them; doesn't keep them away!  We were all given head covering fly nets which are best worn over a hat with a wide brim.   It's the latest fashion.


Wayne and I had lunch in the hotel resort restaurant.  He went back to the room and I walked SLOWLY to the town center where the usual shops are selling things we don't need.

Red river gum. The white bark was interesting.

I wandered through a supermarket and found the Australian favorite, Vegemite and Marmite.  Equally as yummy.

It's a food spread, dark brown, made from leftover brewers' yeast extract with various vegetable and spices.  It looks like apple butter but it doesn't taste like it!  Kind of like beer extract spread on toast.

Better by far, Australian cookies, Tim Tams.  Chocolate covered wafers, some with Carmel inside.  I had one being passed around by a member of our tour, YUM!

At 3:45 pm we left the hotel and had a bus tour of the national park, the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park home to an Aboriginal tribe.  Ayers Rock is sacred to them with many stories passed down from parents to children.  We weren't allowed to take pictures of anything in their cultureal center nor many areas of Ayers Rock as we drove around. Our guide pointed out various men's sacred areas and various women's sacred areas of the rock. He's a certified guide, and yet isn't allowed to know what makes the areas sacred nor is allowed to go near them. And if you were ever to learn the significance of any one of their sacred areas, he is on honor bound not to tell anyone the stories of why they are sacred.


Close-ups of Ayers Rock as we drove around the perimeter. I only took pictures where we were permitted, most of which are taken from the bus window.











After our stop at the cultural Center, we drove to an area where our guy took us all of the bus for approximately a half mile walk to a watering hole. I decided not to take the walk. The heat, over 102 at that time, with a lower humidity of approximately 48%, and the flies, did I mention the flies, made me decide that it was best to just stay in the bus.

From there we went to a viewing area where there were many buses, just like ours, all there to watch the sunset at Ayers Rock. We actually watched from the east with the sun setting behind our backs so that we could see the light shine on Ayers Rock as it went down. It was truly magnificent.

I took these pictures at intervals as the sun behind us broke through the clouds and cast light on the rock.  You can see the difference, as the light broke through the clouds or there was heavy cloud cover blocking the sun.

























 

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