Ayers Rock Bonanza

We said our farewell to Sydney by taking 2 little sightseeing buses around the city. The first one took us to the famous Bondi Beach. For somewhere so infamous for it's surfing culture and beautiful scenery, it's seriously over rated. Nevertheless, We found a lovely little cafe to have lunch and walked the coastal path to Bronte Beach to pick the bus up back to the city.

The second bus was just a city bus with a commentary pointing out all the famous sites. It was a nice way to say goodbye - We'd had an awesome time here and could have easily stayed another week.

So for the next three days we had a trip to Ayers Rock (or Uluru... or Oo-la-roo!) planned so we made our way to the airport in the morning for the 3 hour flight to Uluru.

It was an amazing thing for me to fly 3 hours and not see the sea! Even more strange was that once we'd escaped the airspace of Sydney's suburbs there was ......nothing. Nothing but red sand and a few shrubs. the desert's an amazing phenomenon... more on that later.

Pick up for the first excursion wasn't until 3pm so that left us a few hours to settle in and get some lunch.

For those of you who have spent an hour or so or more with Darren in the summer months will know that he's not a fan of flies. He HATES them. We were tipped off at the airport to buy a fly net. Flies that love the dry heat of the desert, seek out moisture wherever they can and ears, noses and eyes are a nutritious and delicious source for this.

At the resort, I popped into the small supermarket to pick up some lunch and left Darren outside. Only to return less than 15 minutes later to find Darren sat on a bench like a scolded schoolboy. He was already sulking about the flies. Bless.

We'd booked this trip before we left the UK and it had been recommended to us by Syd at Travelbag. So 3 o'clock arrived and we boarded the coach for the first part of our sightseeing trip.

Enter the Grey Army and Gordon, the grumpiest bus driver in the outback - our company for the next 3 days. Thanks Syd! I'll try not to dwell on this too much because it detracts from the amazing things that we actually did see but we'd basically been booked onto what can only be described as a SAGA holiday.

I'll keep the itinerary as brief as I can as I think that the photos will do the experience the most justice.

Yulara, the town that homes Ayers Rock is also home to The Olgas (or Kata-Tjuta... or Catta Joota) The Olgas are a cluster of smaller rocks rather than one huge rock and combined are actually far bigger than Ayers Rock. Our first stop was a 2.5km walk down a gorge created by the Olgas. The heat of the desert is SO intense and you quickly realise how lethal it would be out there with no shade or water. Even after an hour walking with 2 litres of water we started to flake and I got the shakes. It's quite a scary experience.

We then moved on to see Uluru at sunset, quite a spectacular sight.

At 5:30!!!!! the next morning, we travelled back to Uluru to see it at sunrise. In my opinion, less spectacular as we didn't get the ever changing shades of red on the rock as we had done the previous night and it was FAR TOO EARLY to be appreciating anything other than our tiredness!

After a sneaky peak at some ancient cave paintings on the side of the rock, we headed north to Kings Canyon. This is a minor distance when you look at a map of Oz but still took us 4 hours or so. 4 hours of red sand and shrubs is mind numbingly boring and it's amazing how boring things become exciting when you're bored. After a short lived game of 'I spy' (sky, sand, rocks, shrubs, trees, coach) I caught myself saying things like "There's more trees here" and "This area's more shrubby isn't it?"

Phew!

Kings Canyon is Australia's answer to the Grand Canyon and it was here we were able to break free from the slow paced coffin dodgers to partake in a 6km trek round the canyon rim. Which was great and even better for my tan!

We left KC at 11am and began our mammoth journey back to Alice Springs where we would catch our flight to Brisbane. On the longer portions of our trip, Grumpy Gordon had done what he could to try and relieve some of the boredom and so far, this had arrived in the form of documentary DVDs on Australia's Flora and Fauna. I like nature programmes so this pleased me. However, these soon ran out and when he uttered the words "So I'll just put on some 'relaxing' music for you to listen to as we continue our journey" our faces filled with dread. Considering the demographic of our party, we knew this was not going to be your mainstream Coldplay or Snow Patrol.

We gazed out the window as the strings began to liquefy our brains... and then it started... panpipes.

7 HOURS OF DESERT AND PANPIPES LATER we arrived in Alice Springs before our flight to Brisbane in the morning.

Despite being in the middle of nowhere, it was a great trip and we're really glad we made it out to the 'Red Centre' as the rocks are truly amazing. We also like to look back on it as an endurance exercise and practise of tolerance for Gordon who was honestly the grouchiest Scotsman we've ever encountered.