0027 Marla to Uluru July 16th

Woke up at our normal leisurely time of about 7 am, and by the time we had breakfasted, packed up, and showered etc (usually all done simultaneously, I might add !!) and hit the road, it was 9.30.  Another lovely sunny day, and about 7 deg C, so just nice.  Last night we had asked the guy in the gas station about the need for a permit to travel on the dirt track we wanted to use to get to Ayers Rock, and he said yes we did, and it took about 6 weeks to obtain.  When I questioned him, he said (rather shortly), if you don’t believe me, go ask the cops.   So first stop this morning was the local cop shop to find out if they knew if we needed a permit to cross Aboriginal lands if we went in to Uluru on our planned dirt road, but as we were still in South Australia, and the road was in the Northern Territory, he claimed ignorance and said he couldn’t help us.   Bugger. 

So we set off up the road, and I have to say it was singularly boring today.  Very little in the way of wild life apart from a few eagles, some cows, and a few horses.  But no roos, no emus, no stumpy tailed lizards – Just straight tarmac roads and scrub !!   Hmmmm.   As someone else said in their blog which seems apt here – “Nothing of interest happened today”. !!!!

Actually that’s not quite true !  We stopped for a lunch picnic at the turn off of the Uluru Road from the main Highway north, and while there spotted a local policeman.  Because the dirt road turn off that we had hoped to try was only about 10 kms back down the track, we asked him about it.  “Oh, you don’t want to do that road”, he said. “You don’t need a permit but it will be about a 900 km route instead of the 250 kms if you just drive in on the main road”.  Now, I don’t know where he got his information from, but the route should be no longer distance wise than the main road – Just slower because it is dirt.  But it is not wise to go off down dirt tracks on one’s own in the outback, and you are supposed to advise the police of your route before you go, and as this policeman obviously wasn’t going to accept us telling him we were heading down that track anyway, we decided discretion was the better part of valour, and we would go into Yulara on the main road, and leave the dirt track for another (better planned) time.  You don’t need to get stuck on a track with no one around to help, or at least knowing where you are.

So we continued into the National Park on the boring black top – Passing the very distinctive Mt Connor after a while, and then later the Rock (now Uluru) and the Olgas (now Kuta Tjuta) came into sight.  We went straight to the only camp site in the National Park (no free camping allowed) and checked in, and as it was already 5 pm, and sunset was at 6.15 pm, we headed straight out to the Olgas, some 45 kms into the park.  We had seen Ayers Rock at sunset a few years ago, so just went straight out to the Olgas this time.  Glass of wine, a few nibbles, and you take your chairs into the park and sit and watch the sun set behind you, colouring the big rocks.  Very impressive and enjoyable.

Then it was back to the camp site, and a quick steak and vino for supper, then we packed everything up as we plan to be up early tomorrow and head back to Ayers Rock for a cultural informative walk around it at 8 am.   Will advise how it turns out tomorrow – Watch this space !!!  After that we will head up to Kings Canyon and Palm Valley etc for a couple of days, before heading into Alice for a couple of days staying with one of my Elise friends and his wife, so we can explore Alice at leisure, and have a day off from driving up these seemingly endless roads !!!.

 

Pics here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0027MarlaToUluru?authkey=Gv1sRgCIXZ-tHW16iOZg#