First morning of our Red Center Tour! After 2 hours of sleep it was a fun first few hours on the bus. Our Canadian friends Fabi and Leanne and Regula from Switzerland from our first tour were on the same bus as us, and about half the rest were on a different bus doing the same tour so we saw them at all the stops along the way. We had 2 guides again, Steve and Jane, who told us Jane was just along to drive but it turns out Steve is still training but they wanted everyone to think it was really his tour and give him feedback accordingly. He did a good job, and mostly fooled us all!
On our way out to Yulara where we spent our first night we stopped at a camel farm and a couple of the girls went on a little ride around the paddock. Apparently there are only one-humped camels (dromedaries) in Australia. They brought them over from Asia and the Middle East to help build railroads across the desert. When the work was done the handlers were told to shoot all the camels, but instead they set them free. The camels adapted to life in the outback pretty quickly and now there are close to a million that roam free. We also drove through Curtain Springs where we saw Mount Conner or "Fooluru" because a lot of people think it is Uluru the first time they see it. It isn't a rock at all, but a mesa or tabletop mountain, and impressive in its own right.
We set up camp at the Yulara "resort" (a very loosely used term) and got our passes to the National Park sorted out. We went over to Kata Tjuta which means 'many heads'. These are 36 domes about 50km west of Uluru. I hadn't known anything about them until we got out there, and they turned out to be spectacular. The domes are a conglomerate of sandstone and other small rocks that were pushed into the area millions of years ago, and they look like they are made of a rough red concrete. The area is still sacred under Anangu law and there are only a few tracks that you can walk through it on. We did the Valley of the Winds Walk (not the same as the Valley of the Waters Walk in the Blue Mountains!) which was a bit steep and rough but and very windy! We made it to the second lookout in between two massive boulders and looked into a valley dotted with boulders. People were losing their hats and everyone's hair was blowing all over the place, but it was nice to escape the heat and especially the flies (which were EVERYWHERE. Gross.)
We went over to a lookout area to watch the sun set on Uluru. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast so we didn't see the spectacular colors as advertised, but it was still pretty cool. After dinner and a campfire (with the obligatory didgeridoo being passed around) we set up our swags- Australian bedrolls with a pad at the bottom and a canvas part that zips over your sleeping bag. We were told to stick our shoes under our swags, as the dingos sometimes like to steal them in the night! We were a little more concerned about the dingos eating our faces, but everyone woke up intact.
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