Uluru

We started our tour to Uluru by stopping at a camel farm to have breakfast and a camel ride. Although there were camel burgers I stuck to a toasted bacon and egg sandwich. The camel ride was fun, not too long, just a walk around the paddock. Now, perhaps like I, you ask what do you do with a camel farm. Well you give rides, some raise them for meat but most are raised for export of live animals to the middle east.

Central Australia, during development, imported camels to use as pack animals as the climate and land was to harsh for horses. So the camels packed the supplies to build the railroad from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north. When the railroad was completed the camel owners were out of work, so several thousand camels were turned loose. These feral camels have boomed in Australia and now total some 1.1 million animals in the outback. Australia is the only country in the world that has a wild camel population, and as such they are in great demand in other countries in the middle east to enable them to keep their animals from being inbred.

Uluru (Ayers Rock), one of the natural wonders of the world, is the largest single monolith in the world. Uluru is made up of a large sandstone formation that during upheaval was turned side ways so that the layers of rock stand vertical not horizontal. It stands 348 meters high and is 9.4 kilometers around the base. It is estimated that 17 times the visible part of Uluru is subsurface.

Uluru is of high spiritual significance to the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the area was given back to the local group and made a national park in 1985. It sees about 400,000 visitors per year at a fee of $25 per person, of which the land owners receive a portion.

Uluru is well protected with marked out trails and viewing places for the tourists to hike and look. Any significant Aboriginal spiritual or cultural area has been restricted from non-aboriginal entry and any type of photo taking.

Uluru sits within a vast area of central Australia that qualifies as a desert. It is too dry to support any type of cactus because cactus needs a consistent moisture supply and this area may go up to 7 years with out rain.

They have had three times the moisture in 2010 as the annual average so it looks a bit green, but with temperatures in the 40s (the UV readings are extreme at 15+) and a dry hot breeze for the last two days, moisture does not last long. You can evaporate standing in the shade, but as the shade tree provides habitat for any number of nasty critters, shade is not that much of an option.

We have taken a sunset tour and a sunrise tour and the Rock changes colors from red to pink to purple and brown depending on how the sun hits it.

We also went to Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) another monolith of aggregate rock that was thrust up and has since eroded into 36 domes shoulder to shoulder forming deep valleys and steep-sided gorges. It is also part of the National Park and has hiking trails developed that allow you to walk through various desert terrain with wonderful views of the surreal boulders.

Kata Tjuta is off limits to non-aboriginal people except within the roped off areas. It must have been a very interesting place prior to being restricted. The cultural centre showed us some of the Aboriginal life.

Although the park rangers keep the camels away from Uluru, not so at Kata Tjuta and we seen several large herds on our tour and yes they do capture wild camels to export. What a hoot that would be.

Both Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed about 500 million years ago, there is a third monolith in Australia that is even older and bigger. Mt. Conner is a U-shaped tabletop mountain that is about three times the size of Uluru, but it is treed and has no cultural or spiritual significance to the Aboriginal, hence just a mountain.

There is no town at Uluru just a resort that consists of six hotels, from backpacker hostels to five star accommodation, campgrounds, and it's own shopping center, complete with an IGA, fire department and police. The resort itself is owned by one company, but each business has it's own management team. The resort was built only with the permission of the local aboriginal group and Australian government and has the sole purpose of servicing the tourists that come to see Uluru.

It kind of amazes me, we have an untapped supply of natural gas in Canada and still run on diesel, here many of the city buses are running on natural gas and this whole resort area, which has 6,000 beds complete with restaurants and other facilities to support, gets all its power from natural gas generators, and believe me the air con runs 24/7.

We spent our last night at Ayers Rock at the "Sounds of Silence" dinner beneath the twinkling southern sky in the middle of the Uluru National Park. Acclaimed as one of the finest dining experiences in Australia, it consists of a leisurely stroll through the desert to an area where you have views of both Uluru and The Olgas as the sun sets. You are plied with champagne and canapes consisting of smoked salmon, crocodile quiche and kangaroo on a cracker.

Then as the sun sets you move down the sand dune to the main dining area set out under the stars where we were entertained by an Aboriginal playing the Didgeridoo. It was white table clothes and full formal setting for a three course buffet meal. We sat at a table for ten with two couples from Holland, a couple from Manchester, England and a couple from Las Vegas. All were very nice and we had travelled and visited with the British and one Dutch couple during our various tours here.

The buffet consisted of numerous salads, including a delectable crocodile caesar, veggies and four meat dishes, including kangaroo filet with a chutney sauce, barramundi, all the wine you wanted to drink, several desserts and fruit plates and a nice Australian port to finish it all off.

It was a memorable evening with good food, good wine, and good people to enjoy it with.