Hello from the RED CENTER!

But I’ll back up for a minute…

Sydney is beautiful – I have named it the City of Bays and Beaches. We walked all over, rode buses, two-level trains, and took the ferry, saw flying foxes (HUGE bat-like things with fox faces) in the botanical garden, and swam in several beaches, thanks to my friend Socs, who was a *lovely* host. We have pretty much decided to get back there a little earlier to see more – the weather is like DC in summer: hot and humid.

Now… we’ve had an adventurous week in the Outback, and a lovely two days at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (Ayer’s Rock). I have very little time to write, and know I am leaving out TONS, but here is a taste, so far 🙂

Day Zero of our 3000 mile Outback trek, one of our 3 car’s trailer opened at some point and much gear was lost, so they got a late start to meet us the next day; Day 1 we (10 of us) stayed in an underground motel in Coober-Pedy (opal capitol of the world, and no, I didn’t buy :)). I think the temp was 39C (108F).

Day 2 we hit the dirt roads and had our first flat tire (getting that fixed on the Aboriginal Lands was an experience), and we bush-camped – it POURED down rain all night, and my swag, supposed to be waterproof, was swimming! Daytime temp was 40C – 110F.

Day 3 we bushed camped again – the night was lovely (about 95F), but we have had near-full moons, and lots of clouds, so have not seen the magnificent starry night sky we had so looked forward to yet :(, and we had apparently camped near a dead carcass (probably a camel), so occasionally had a terrible smell! (Lots of camels, dead and alive -over 500,000 in Australia- are everywhere, and LOTS of dead cars overturned near the road, rusted). Temp was 38C – 106F.

Day 4 we dug for witchety grubs in 42C (112F) degree heat, and then stayed in a hot tin visitors ‘cabin’, and most of us got sick from the heat (yep, me included!).

Day 5, and we crossed the empty red hot desert headed for Uluru-Kata Tjuta NP (Ayer’s Rock and the Olgas) and got another flat in the mud in 43C heat, and finally made it around 7pm after driving toward Kata Tjuta for and hour – what an amazing spectacle – 36 dome peaks over 35 hectares! (Kata Tjuta means “many heads” – very apt! The photo above is of Kata Tjuta, just before we turned off toward Uluru about 12 miles away.) Most of us have recovered by now.

Yesterday morning (Day 6) we got up at 5am to hike the 4+ mile Valley of the Winds in Kata Tjuta – exquisite, alien scenery; it was 88 when we started, and 104 when we finished at 10:30am! An hour ago at 10pm it was still 112 outside. We spent Friday night in the campground just outside the NP in the resort town of Yulara, and yesterday Patricia and I decided to check into a backpacker’s hotel so we could have some privacy, cool air, and a bathroom close by – what a godsend! Marty is staying with us too, as it Letitia, our delightful 11 year old group member. We went to see sunset at Uluru- it didn’t hit the rock, but sunset was beautiful, and getting close to the monolith was amazing. The climb (which we do not plan to do anyway) was closed due to the extreme heat, but I would like to see someone going up the over-45 degree slope!

This morning we got up again at 5am for sunrise on Uluru (no luck – too many clouds), and then did the 7 mile walk around the base. Yesterday and today Marty took Patricia and I on a pub and pool crawl 🙂 – you may remember he worked here for 9 months during his ‘gap’ year. Sure has been fun spending time with him. One scary thing is that I am not finding 100 degrees to be oppressive any more! Yikes!!

Tomorrow we are going to try one last time to see sunrise on the rock, then we are back off into the bush and the red dirt. I have some fantastic photos already, but have not had much success getting the card reader here to work!