Day 1| The next day we flew to Uluru, which is a big rock in the middle of the outback. I swear, it's cool, but it's hard to describe. Take my word for it or google it or something. Uluru is the original Aboriginal name, which they are trying to get everyone to use again so that's why there are two names. Anyway, it really is out in the middle of nowhere so there is only one place to stay if you want to go there. There is actually like 3 hotels in the same resort, but the same people own them all so it's not like there are price wars or something, but I digress. Anyway, we got there in the afternoon and that night we went on a camel ride to see Uluru at sunset. Our camel was named Willy. That camel was the bomb. Colleen was all about him cause he had long eyelashes. After the camel ride they took us back to the camel station for a cold beer and ... I'm not kidding ... camel meat. There was chips and salsa too, but I was just shocked that they would have us form these bonds with the camels and then serve up their departed siblings on a plate. It's like reading Charlotte's Web while devouring a nice plate of bacon. Mmmm ... some pig. |
Nick, Colleen, and Willy with Uluru as a backdrop |
Day 2We woke up early in the morning to take a van out to Uluru so we could see it up close. There is this big issue on whether you should climb Uluru since the Aborigines think it's sacred. They strongly encourage you not too, but it's not forbidden. We decided not to cause we're chill like that. It is quite the controversy though, in the hotel gift shop there are t-shirts right next to each other, one saying "I climbed Uluru" and another saying "I didn't climb Uluru." While we were on a free walking tour we started to get attacked by flies. We had noticed people the day before with those little safari hats with nets on them and we kind of laughed at them, but we had gotten to Uluru in late afternoon so we didn't really get the mid-day fly action. The sun was really starting to come up though and the flies were pissed at us about something. Australian flies aren't like U.S. flies. U.S. flies have ADD. You brush them aside and they go on their merry way. Australian flies are all on Ritalin. They are extremely focused on you and only you, specifically your inner nose and ear. If they can get in your mouth they're particularly psyched. They literally follow you around so even if you only have a couple it feels like you're being swarmed, but lucky for us we didn't have to just feel like we were being swarmed since we were in fact, being swarmed in the truest sense. We ended up walking a couple miles to the visitor center to buy a couple of those stupid ass face net things we had been just been mocking less than 24 hours earlier. By the way, those fly net things are the bomb. I know I said our camel was the bomb, but these things were really the bomb. With our new fly defense system we went back to walk around Uluru for a bit and then went back to the hotel.
Part of Uluru |
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