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Saturday 13 June 2009

Ayers Rock


13th June – Saturday

A BIG day today!

Warm night, cloudy morning and no wind, which was a great help to the day’s fuel consumption. Fuel did become a bit of a problem today as when we went to fill up at Erldunda Roadhouse (where we had spent the night), we were told there was no diesel left!!! The closest was at Mt Ebernezer, 56 kms away on the road to Yulara. We had enough in the tank to travel 120 kms, so set out in the hope that Mt Ebernezer still had diesel. They did – at $1.90 a litre not many people buy it there. We bought enough to get us to Yulara, as did a number of others behind us.

Tension in the car increased after Mt Ebernezer (Cat decided to sleep in the caravan) as the navigator decided it was time to learn how to tow a caravan. Pilot realised it had to happen and did cope for 70 kms. Pilot has sort of accepted that it is going to occur every day now.

An unexpected sight was Mt Connor rising out of the desert – such a huge mountain all on its own. At first, we thought it was Ayers Rock, but quickly realised it wasn’t.

Shortly before reaching Yulara, we were flagged down by a caravan heading the other way. There was plenty of vehicles on the road, so Les walked back to find out what the problem was as we couldn’t make sense of what they were saying on the two-way. The man offered to sell us his pass into Uluru for a few dollars less than he had paid for it. It all sounded rather suss, so I told him I had used all my cash to purchase diesel at Mt Ebernezer.

Arrived at Yulara Resort at 12.15pm, checked in ($38 a night here) and was given a site that had a large fire hose in the middle of the area where an awning would go. Big walk back to reception to ask for another site, was given the choice of two at the back of the park, so moved the caravan and then had another big walk to let reception know which site we were on. No grass, just red dirt and a small concrete slab. We have been issued with passes to allow us to purchase alcohol at the resort. (Alcohol and pornography and not permitted on the Aboriginal land here.) There is also an IGA supermarket here, thank goodness, so we were able to stock up on fresh food again. Fuel is also much cheaper than Mt Ebernezer!

Headed into Uluru for some orientation, and pay our entrance fee of $25 each for three days. Ayers Rock (or Uluru) is absolutely amazing, as are the prices in the gift shop! We returned to watch the sunset, along with many, many others. It was just fantastic to watch the colours change – will have to get someone out of bed bright and early now to watch the sunrise!

I think we will be “rocked out” by the time we leave here on Tuesday.

1 comment:

Di's Blog! said...

Rock on!! Looking forward to seeing photos of the sunrise :)