Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Uluru

And so as a 2011 goodbye to Oz (I'll be back!) I went on a trip to Uluru, in the middle of the red centre of Oz. It. Was. Amazing. I just loved it. A lot of people (Australians mainly) shrug when you mention Ayers Rock but to me it was worth the trip. The trip is a story in itself, as we decided to drive down from Darwin, which took approximately 22 hours. We left about 2am with the intention of catching the native wildlife when they were awake, and yes there was plenty of wildlife! Wallabies, cows, buffalos, dingos, eagles, snakes, big red kangeroos that give you the evil eye as you slowly pass, and my personal favourite surprise - camels! At parts the drive can be quite dangerous as most of these animals can do considerable damage to your car if there is a collision - you're put of road as they lollop or bound away unharmed. It was brilliant to see 'the real' Australia as its hard to understand the sheer vastness of the country until you see it. When we were driving all you could see was miles of uninterupted outback, with the red soil and dry smell you knew you were far from home Toto.

The rock itself is, yes, a giant rock in the middle of the desert. But how? And why? And how cooool it is... it's very, very big when you get up close and personal, with lots of detail such as caves, watermarks and drawings that are tens of thousands of years old. While you can climb to the top if you want to, the Aboriginal people ask that you don't. There were plenty of people climbing when I was there but I really felt that it was a spiritual place and basically...don't mess with it! Not to be disrespectful and just to enjoy it as it is. Besides, the view from the top was what I had seen for the previous days travel anyway!

We managed the drive back home to Darwin uncrashed as well...actually I lie. A little birdie decided to kamikaze into our windscreen and unfortunately he went straight to birdie heaven. Or should that be fortunately? Anyway if that was our only casuality then we came off lucky. The next few days are going to be spent getting ready to go on the move again and to say goodbyes, which is always hard to do. The past few weeks I've really felt so happy here it's going to be tough to move on, but the travellers bug has bitten me well and truely so let's continue on with the adventure. Until we meet again Oz!!   xxx