Australia - Day 4, Uluru (Ayer's Rock)

The tour I booked was the eco tour which included a sunset & sunrise tour of one of the rocks, depending on which one you wanted. My thinking was I could get a picture of Uluru at sunset from one of the many lookouts around the resort, so I would take the sunrise walk around the base of it. Now, my thinking was that there would be a viewing point to watch the sunrise hit Uluru while we enjoyed our breakfast (included). Not so much, so that was kind of disappointing. Other than that, the walk was about 12 km (~9 miles) & included some Aboriginal stories regarding the rock. Uluru is considered a sacred site for the Aborigines & there where parts of the rock we weren't allowed to take photos of. One supposition is that by taking pictures of the rock, it's spirit is sucked out of it. However, since there are many, many photos of Uluru from a distance & you can see those parts of the rock, & there probably isn't an effective range of a camera's spirit sucking power, that theory doesn't hold a lot of water. The other theory is that some of the sacred parts of the rock are specific to men or women & someone might come across a photo of a place they aren't suppose to look at. That one makes more sense, however odd it may seem to you & me.

Now, when I say "walk", I really mean stroll; because there were times that if I walked any slower, I would have been going backward. When our guide, Andrew, said it was going to take about four & a half hours for the walk, I wondered, "how the hell is it going to take that long to walk 9 miles?". Now I know. We also stopped a couple of times for the stories & for breakfast. So, if you end up going to Uluru, there is also a sunrise bus tour that covers the same information and stories, but without all the flies, stops at the cultural center, and ends an hour earlier than the walk. If you do take the walk, buy a head net (one that goes over your head to protect you from insects) because 90% of all flies in Australia are hanging out at Uluru. After the walk I went back to the hotel & had lunch, then went over to the spa for a massage& facial. Aaaaahhhhh.(Side note: did anyone know they make disposable g-strings? They do, just in case you ever wondered.) And got my sunset photo of Uluru; I also got one during sunrise the next morning since I had to be up to catch the shuttle to the airport.

Back when...a guy was exploring around Uluru & came across the springs in the third photo. Being a heartsick fool, he decided to name the spring after the girl he pined for, Maggie, in an attempt to impress her and her father, Lord Ayers (Ayers...Ayers Rock...get it?). So he rushed back to where ever to tell Maggie of his discovery only to find out that she had gone off & gotten married. Thus the story ends with his heart being left at Maggie Springs - if you look at the top hole in the rock wall in the bottom photo it is in the shape of a heart.

The Queen's English vs. Yank English: As I'm walking into the gift shop at the airport to kill some time, the cashier says
to me, "If you're wearing thongs, watch your step. There's acentipede just there." I'm thinking to myself, "How does my underwear choice affect there being a bug on the ground?" Then I noticed she was pointing at my feet & my brain translated from Aussie English to American English & realized she was talking about my shoes. I was wearing flip-flops, which are called thongs in Australia.






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