So we flew three hours to the middle of the country to see a big rock. It's more than just that but it's also just that. Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) stands 1,142 feet high with an outer circumference of 5.8 miles. We went in to the trip eager to get a taste of the Australian Outback and to give the girls some sense of the dusty red plains that they'd only heard about through song. Uluru holds special spiritual significance for the Aboriginal populations and I looked forward to learning about that as well.
Australia is the second driest content after Antarctica. Despite the lushness of Sydney and much of the eastern coast most of the country consists of desert and semi-arid grasslands. Uluru stands in the center of the country near the borders of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. Many people fly in to Alice Springs and then take the five hour drive to the park. Alice Springs boasts a population of 25,000 making it the third most populous town in the Northern Territory. Yup, this area is remote. We had the good fortune to fly directly into Yulara - only a fifteen minute drive from the park. Yulara consists of a tiny airport, several lodging options, a general store, a gas station, a few restaurants and a year round population of about 900.
We actually started our day by waking at sunrise in Sydney.
Flying in you get a first glimpse of Uluru from the plane. The girls shrieked when they saw it. "Look, the Big Rock!" We have been reading a book about a family taking a road trip around Australia so they knew that a little about Uluru and how people go to watch the colors change at different times of day. The rock really stands out on the landscape. It's amazing up close but it's almost more amazing from afar because you see it in the context of just miles of flatness.
I worried that with all the amazing photos of Uluru I would find myself frustrated by my own attempts to capture it. Instead, we drove up to the sunset viewing area and I snapped this shot right away on my cell phone. The conditions were perfect. It was warm but not hot. Cloudless and dry. The flies annoyed us but then given that we missed out on the legendary summer heat it felt appropriate to endure some sort of hardship.
So after taking a good first shot we had forty minutes to look around, appreciate the flowers and just take in the landscape. From ground level things look surprisingly green. There are even trees but somehow none of them provide shade. From above you get a better sense of the dryness and the redness. And up close you can see that the grass is really a spiky, barbed plant called spinifex. Still, I'm quite fond of this fragrant bush.
We took some sunset portraits.
We watched older girls sketch and paint. The crowd was quiet and respectful. Some people resent crowds at national parks but I like to look around and see that all these people came all this way just to watch the sun set and admire nature. It gives me faith.
Emily took a turn with the big camera and even took some good shots.
This picture cracks me up because clearly it's all about us, her parents, and Uluru is tucked in the corner as an after thought.
And then the sun set. And the colors just got better. The foreground darkened and the reds really came out. It was stunning.
And Brian got this lovely panorama. Already worth the whole trip.
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