We had seen the first part of the road trip and we were making faster progress than we had expected so I was starting to think that we would be able to make really good time and visit a lot more places than we had been expecting to see. It was around now where I was starting to realise that there was a lot of nothingness in the Outback and you can cover some very long distances before you see anything interesting. I also had regrets about not visiting Karijini. Looking at the map we decided we could go there and opted to add Karijini and Ningaloo to the original plans. We drove onwards and stopped for a short walk to a salt lake and a look over Mt Connor on the way in. We were managing to see at least one cool thing everyday on this trip so far, so it was off setting the extreme driving and the fatigue was yet to kick in. We got to Uluru resort in time to head for the famous sunset. Its very nice and although I am not much of a sunset man, you can see the subtle shift in colour tone on the rock as the sun descended. It was a little surreal staring at the iconic Australian image. So many people had told us how disappointed they had been with Uluru etc that we had our expectations suitably low and I think that really helps to appreciate the magnificence of the place.
In the morning we headed down for sunrise. That was a mistake as it looks exactly the same as the sunset only in reverse. For someone who doesn't care that much for the sun it was a little boring watching it a second time. Then we drove to Kata Tjuta to do the Valley of the Winds walk as they recommend doing it in the morning. This was a really beautiful little hike. The tour groups only do the walk to the viewpoint, but I definitely think its worth doing the full circuit as we saw a Euro (weird name I know but not the money but a type of wallaby). We did the second walk as well, which is nice but not as special as the most famous one. Its very peaceful and you can see why the aborigines revered the place. Of course they revered anything that is of the slightest bit of interest. Makes sense. When you live in flat, boring nothingness then everything else looks spectacular. I actually think Kata Tjuta looks spectacular from a distance, nothing special from the viewpoint and quite pretty when you hike around it. Well worth doing all three to get the different perspectives. After that we went back and did the full 11km circuit hike around Uluru. Doing 22km would normally be nothing for us, but in the middle of the day in the Outback that can almost knock you flat. The water is just sucked right out of you. The walk goes through some special places and you really get a feel for the rock. The waterhole area is one of the most serenely beautiful places we saw on the trip. Everyone just fell silent there and just absorbed the atmosphere. I don't think you need to do the full loop though, although if you drive down you will have to as the back side is just a long shadeless walk along the road. Its the front end that is more interesting. The rock is more impressive when you walk around it as you see the cracks, cuts and slashes along the surface. These are not very visible from distance when it just looks like a giant, solid slab of rock. Surprisingly for us we saw people climbing up it. A lot of Australians but also a lot of foreigners. This surprised us as we figured everyone would know that this would offend the aborigines and therefore not do it. Apparently 38% of people still elect to climb it. They won't stop it until that number drops below 20%. So much for principles. Surely it is sacred or it is not. Saying something is sacred but that money takes precedence is not going to be a very persuasive argument to people that your culture stands for something. For the foreigners I don't see the point. What do you see up there. A higher view of fuck all across the plains? Oh well. There is an interesting book of apologies in the cultural centre where people have returned rocks they took from Uluru and apologised for taking them. There are too many stupid fucks out there. Really? Why the fuck are they stealing rocks from a sacred site. That triggers off another irony. Why are the Australians panning the aborigines for getting wasted every night and stumbling around like bums. Have they never seen their own cities at night. Tell me whats the difference except one is in the streets and the other is in the bars. We finished up with Uluru and drove out to one of the free campsites.
The next day we got to Kings Canyon where we were checked in by a robot. There is no way that guy was human. Weird. Maybe they are testing robots for customer service. This seems to be quite common in Australia. Oh well. We set off to do the Canyon Walk. At first it looks like it was going to be a boring gorge walk, but it actually morphs into one of the highlights of the trip. Certainly for the others. I think the circumnavigating walk is quite impressive, but its the beehive style domes at the end that caught me by surprise. They looked very much like a dilapidated version of the bungle bungles. Very beautiful. We also saw what were probably a couple of red kangaroos here. We decided that we wouldn't go to the bungle bungles now if it was difficult as we had seen something similar. Apparently all these rock formations had been part of a giant inland sea and that probably explains the colour and uniqueness. Its definitely a cool place, though I preferred Uluru, I think I was in the minority of just me. All of them were special. In the campsite in the evening we got to see our first dingo as well. Cool.
In the morning we took another unsealed road round to Hermannsburg. It had looked interesting and after camping for a few days already now, the idea of having some apple strudel had some serious appeal. We got there and toured the old mission for the aborigines. It is weird to see some old historical buildings and interesting to read the history of the place. The food was also really cheap and good for the outback. Well worth the deviation. We even saw a lot of aborigines in better conditions than Alice Springs. It had a more positive vibe until the petrol station guy told us he had to lock the petrol pumps in order to prevent petrol sniffing. Fuck sake. The depression continued. We pushed on from here and saw a lookout over some lush green vegetation before making it to the west of the West MacDonnells.
The mountain range is kind of similar and after a while you get to be a bit sick of gorges. There are a lot of gorges in the outback. It is definitely the most proliferous of sites. Some of them were really beautiful and some were not bad. They were all quite similar. I am glad that we decided just to spend the one day here and not two as we originally planned. This is where we knew we would be able to push it harder for the rest of the trip as we were beginning to get saturated with some things. We did see our first whip snake here, which is a little scary as you know all these little bastards can kill you here. We also saw our first redback spider after all our time here. Still haven't managed to see a huntsman though. In the final gorge, closest to Alice Springs we saw a black footed rock wallaby. Lots of the little guys. So unbelievably cute. It was a pleasant roll back into Alice Springs where Laura would leave us to fly back to Sydney. We spent another half day in the depressing shithole before we would have to leave in the morning. Here we met an old Australian guy who had been doing a lot of salvation army work with aborigines. He said a lot of old men in Queensland take alcohol out to aboriginal women in exchange for sex. Ah the joys of mankind. He also told lots of stories f his time in the British army and it was interesting to hear about Cyprus and Northern Ireland from someone who had actually been there. The first part of the trip had been pleasantly paced and we had enjoyed all of it. Now we were going to pick up the pace and go mental for the second half of the trip.
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