Uluru, Australia

It was a smooth and comfortable 3 hour flight from Sydney to Ayer’s Rock. The approach to the Ayer’s Rock airport was classic outback Australia - red sand, scrub trees and lots of bright sunshine! We walked off the plane into perfect, 70 something degree warmth and after getting the rental car, we had our first beautiful view of infamous Uluru, the original Aboriginal term for Ayer’s Rock. What a sight!

Here’s the interesting thing, though, about coming to Uluru. Because you’re out here in the middle of the desert there is one place to stay, the Ayer’s Rock Resort. Now, within this resort, there are three hotels and two campgrounds and those are your choices for accommodations. Now it’s all very nice looking - a nice smooth road in from the airport, a little “shopping center” with two restaurants, a post office, grocery store, tourist information, etc., as well as a shuttle bus that makes a loop through all the hotels and the shopping center all day long. Let’s just say, whoever set this place up knew what they were doing. I have to say, it’s kind of weird being in this pre-packaged compound in the middle of nowhere.

Now, because there is this monopoly on places to stay near the rock, prices are outrageously high and since we’re trying to do this travel on somewhat of a budget, we decided to go with the most “modestly” priced option, the Pioneer Outback Lodge. Suffice it to say, it’s the most we’ve spent on a hotel since we’ve been traveling for the worst room we’ve had. It really looked more like a glorified prison cell than a hotel room. Our room has a tile floor, yellow painted cinder block walls with no artwork on them and a double bed that rolls across the room if you move around on it too much. Gotta love it, right???? On well…..we just have two nights here and how much time are we really going to spend in the room anyway……

After taking a spin into “town”, which is at most a mile away and getting a bite to eat, we headed out to Uluru for a sunset viewing of the rock. Uluru is actually in a national park along with another rock formation called “Kata Tjuta,, also known as “The Olgas”. While Uluru is certainly the more famous of the rock formations, I have to say Kata Tjuta also looks really cool so we’re looking forward to exploring that area as well tomorrow. The entrance fee to the park is $25 a person - I know, ouch! - but it does cover you for three days, which is about the maximum amount of time anyone spends out here. And even though the fee is steep, we know it goes to support the park as well as the Aboriginal community that lives in the area.

The first view of that rock as you drive out to it is truly breathtaking. To see this amazing, other worldly looking huge loaf of a rock rising out of the desert landscape with nothing else around it is truly something. Once you’ve entered the park, there is a bush walk around the base of the rock that you can do that is 10.6 kms long and takes about 3.5 hours (we’re planning on doing that tomorrow). As you drive through the park, there is a parking lot specifically designed to watch the rock at sunset, which we did tonight and it was spectacular. The rock starts out this beautiful red adobe color but as the sun goes down, it starts to fade to purple. What a cool sight! The best part of all is that there was a full moon tonight and we got some great pictures of the full moon rising behind Uluru.