18 June – Bound for Uluru

Our vacation begins at 5 am, which, being the same time that the workday begins, doesn’t seem much like a holiday to me. But then again, I guess our early start gives us a longer day over which to enjoy our time off. This is what I rationalize to myself as I stand brewing coffee two hours before sunrise on my first day of holiday.

We are out the door by 6:30 am, waiting for our local bus at Bondi Beach. It’s a clear, calm morning, the surf nearly nonexistent. It’s these mornings where we most appreciate our choice to move here, enjoying the peace of the golden beach just a few steps from home. From the bus to the train to another train, we smoothly navigate the public transportation system to the airport. This is thanks to Gina, who I’ve recently nicknamed “Muppepedia,” for after only 2 months in country, she can rattle off every bus route, train ticket cost, internet plan, and phone connection fee for all of New South Wales. She is our walking 411, getting us to the airport – and everywhere, really – virtually hassle-free.

This stress-free streak continues in the Domestic Terminal, where we check in, drop off our bags, ask for better seats (sorry, but no), and waltz not just through the check-in procedure but all of the way through security without ANYONE checking our ID. No one. No glassy-eyed TSA workers scanning our boarding passes and passports, mindlessly rubber-stamping us through to our destination. No disrobing outside the scanning machine, nor standing in stocking feet awaiting our turn to pass through. Nope, our shoes never came off our feet nor our cosmetics and liquids out of their quart-size Ziploc bags. It’s clear that if you stepped inside a time machine and turned it back 25 years, you’d come out the other side in Australia.

Contemplating the Aussie form of security, we concluded that perhaps they were unconcerned about our identity here in-country because they are so thorough about checking who you are and what you’re carrying with you when you come into the country. There are required visas, even if you’re just visiting for a few days, and beagles sniffing you over from head to toe for any and every illegal substance including, we’ve been told, apricot danishes. This is all documented on Australia’s countless border security television shows. We have watched at least six different flavors of these, offspring of America’s “Cops” that have multiplied and thrived Down Under. So it’s not easy to get into Australia, but once you’re here, you’re apparently free to move about the cabin.

Aboard our Qantas flight, the hands of time continued to spin backwards. First, there was the in-flight service, reminiscent of days long gone by in America. Did that flight attendant really just hand us each a breakfast quiche, free of charge? And did he really call me Madam? And did he actually stop his service to go all of the way to the back of the plane to get Gina a cup of ice? And are those movie headsets also free? And what is that – a can of coke AND a bag of pretzels, after I’ve already filled up on that lovely breakfast quiche? All of this on only a 3 hour flight in Economy class? This really is the Land Before Time.

Thirty minutes before time, to be exact. I always thought time zones were measured in one hour increments. How is it that we have flown 3 hours into the center of the country to only change the clock by 30 minutes? Does that mean we are stopping halfway through a time zone? Or does Australia really have a time zone that’s only 30 minutes different from those that surround it? Coming to expect the unexpected here, we’re not all that surprised to learn that indeed, Australia is one of a handful of countries that has “non-standard” time zones. I guess we should be thankful that this question came up in winter, for we also learned that, and I quote, “Australia has both vertical and horizontal time zones in summer.” Come again?

We land in the midst of a sea of red dirt. This is the dirt that, over the days ahead, will come to stain our shoes, socks, pant legs, and in all likelihood, a toe or two, as it appears to be a rather lasting substance. In accordance with our theory of Australian time travel, we disembark our 737 through the rear and down the stairs, straight onto the tarmac. Gina stops to take a photo before security waves her off. Given her past brushes with the airlines , this is a rather bold move on her part.

We are staying at The Lost Camel hotel. There is a story around the name – a legend, actually, about yet another Australian expedition gone bad, leaving behind three camels now haunting the outback nights as they make their long journey home. I like the sentiment. There are days when Gina and I feel like those camels, lost here in this strange yet beautiful, odd yet intriguing, sometimes lonely land.

We are happy to report that our room is several stars better than our last Australian hotel experience at the Katoomba Mountain Lodge . There are comfy purple chairs to sit on, a spacious shower (en-suite) in which to scrub off the dusty red earth, and a fridge stocked with mini bar prices that are actually cheaper than the retail prices here at Ayers Rock Resort.

It may sound surprising that we campers are staying at a resort, but (a) our camping gear is still sitting in customs, now two weeks overdue, and (b) the resort is the only game in town, making up the town itself and providing the only accommodations within a 400+ km radius of The Rock. It’s a complete monopoly, free to charge whatever it pleases for goods and services. Want a 6-pack of beer? That will be $56. Need to pump some gas to refuel that rental car tank? That will be $7/gallon. Did you say you need to use your credit card to pay for that, as we’ve bled you dry of all your cash? That will be an additional 1% surcharge. It’s a little ridiculous and yet it also makes sense that prices would be higher than high here, given the incredible distance these things – and us people who want and need them – are located away from any hub of civilization.

19 June – Uluru

Today we tramped the Base Walk around Uluru. The Base Walk is rated an “easy” 10 km (6 mi) because it’s flat and hard to take a wrong turn, with that behemoth of a rock always sitting over one shoulder. We were thankful that the day was pleasantly warm but not hot, with a moderate breeze in most places to keep the flies at bay. There were only a handful of fellow walkers, all of whom disappeared within about 30 minutes from the start of the trail.

We were alone in the Outback. Or at least we thought we were, until we heard the sounds of barking dogs. Several dogs. Bark, bark, bark. Now who would have so many barking dogs out here in the Outback? Probably no one, we thought, as we recalled the “Don’t Feed the Dingoes” signs posted near the car park. Great – we’re out here alone with a pack of dingoes and while we know not to feed them, what about them eating us? Quickly scanning our 2 page park brochure for dingo facts and finding nothing but warnings about heat stroke and dehydration, we decided to pick up the pace rather than stand there reading. With their not-so-distant barks ringing in our ears, we put a move on down the trail, wrapping up our Base Walk with limbs and innards intact.

On our schedule for the evening was the Sounds of Silence dinner, to be attended with Neighbors Cynthia and Kim and The Walkers of NYC, all of whom had flown in today for their own Uluru adventure. The premiere event of any trip to Uluru, the Sounds of Silence dinner treats you to a champagne sunset view of Uluru, followed by a candlelit dinner beneath the wide open, starry skies. What’s on the menu? Why crocodile and kangaroo, of course. Per Neighbor Cynthia, eating kangaroo is like eating sheep, not in the sense of flavor but in the sense of abundance. Hearing that Australia may be the only country to dine upon its coat of arms, we joined in their cannibalistic ways and gave it a fair go, sampling the ‘roo. Overall impression? A little bit gamey and potentially a lot more satisfying to watch bounding around the Outback than sliding down one’s gullet.

The final satisfying touch to the evening was an educational talk on the starry night skies. We learned that what we’ve been calling the Southern Cross since we landed is actually the Diamond Cross. Good thing we weren’t navigating by it or we would have ended up as lost as our hotel camels. We also learned that you can see the handle of the Big Dipper low on the horizon. Of course it’s upside down, but we’ve come to expect that living here in Oz.

20 June – A Day at Kata Tjuta

Today was spent hiking out at Kata Tjuta, also known as The Olgas or “many heads”. The first trek of the day was on the Valley of the Winds trail, a 7.4 km “moderate to difficult” route meandering through rock passes and surprisingly green fields on the backside of the heads. Our second trek was the shorter 2.6 km walk up the Walpa Gorge, with sheer, red rock walls rising on either side of us. Not to discredit the powerful bulk and solitude of Uluru, which has a magic of its own, but we thought the hiking through Kata Tjuta was the true bomb of the area.

On our Olga treks we met a nice couple from Boston, here in Australia on a 4 week holiday. It was good we chatted with them and learned that the drive from Darwin to Alice Springs – a 1500 km (900 mi) trek – was full of long, hard days. The kind you report to others while you hang your head, stifle a bit of a grimace, and look over at your traveling partner with that knowing look that says, yes, I know you told me so. This was a lucky break for me, since Gina had started toying with the idea of that drive and all I could picture were endless barren days of me behind the wheel with her snoozing comfortably away in the passenger seat, as she is wont to do on any road trip over about an hour.

Speaking of driving, we both practiced our wrong-side steering skills this trip. Gina was first out of the gate, for I am typically The Navigator, being the one of us who can read in the car without getting motion sickness, and my skills were needed to get us initially headed in the right direction. Granted, there were only two ways to go on the one road through town, and that giant rock on the horizon was a pretty good clue as to which direction to head, but my navigational skills needed to be at the ready – it’s dangerous here in the Outback, ya know.

Practicing our driving, we learned that Gina driving on the right side of the car on the left side of the road produces an unexpected gravitational effect that causes the car to hug the extreme left shoulder of the road, with an inexplicable aversion to the center line. This worked out okay when the shoulder was paved or hard-packed dirt, but produced a bit of a bumpy ride when it was lined with concrete bricks. As a bonus, though, we enjoyed the cleanest windshield in all of the Red Centre, the wipers being where the turn signals normally reside.

21 June – Hanging at Ayers Rock Resort

Today is a free day, a day to do with whatever we want, for we have hiked every trail within a 3 hour radius of the resort and we’re nearly out of free kilometers on our rental car. We therefore choose to spend this day taking one last look at the Olgas, which unexpectedly gives us our first look at a herd of wild camels.

Neighbor Cynthia had been teasing us with her many winning shots of the plethora of wild camels they had seen the day before so we were eager to even the score and report upon a sighting of our own. And dang, if we didn’t just drive 100 km an hour past a small, grazing herd to our left. Camels! I shouted. With a flick of the windshield wipers (yes, that was supposed to be a left turn signal), Gina aimed our red Camry for the shoulder. Only there really wasn’t a shoulder here by the camels so with another flick of the windshield wipers (yes, that was supposed to be turning off the turn signal), we rumbled back onto the pavement and tried desperately to find a place to pull over.

Despite the hundreds of kilometers of open outback plains stretched out around us in every direction, there wasn’t a solid shoulder to be had until several kilometers down the road. By the time we returned, the camels were gone and in their place? Two smiling tourists toting their cameras back to the car, clearly coming back from a photogenic wander in the dunes that gave them something to show folks back home and us nothing more than the memories in our heads. Damn tourists. So Neighbor Cynthia, we have no proof but we really did see those wild camels. Really.

Complete Uluru Photos Link