Day 5 Coober Pedy to Uluru (Ayers Rock)

We were packed up and gone by 7.30am this morning in anticipation of a long day on the road. 730kms in fact. The ever-changing landscape is quite fascinating, from empty plains, to low scrub, to trees, back to red desert plains. We stopped at the huge Marla roadhouse, which is a major turning point off the Stuart Highway for those heading to Oodnadatta & Lake Eyre.

 

The roadhouse, as well as selling fuel, also has a fairly large supermarket, caravan park (complete with pool), large motel, an aboriginal art gallery, and a nice treed, grassed area.  I counted 25 caravans all lined up either fuelling up, or taking a break before heading off on their journeys again, like us.

 

After a fuel up and a stretch of our legs, we drove through to the next major roadhouse, Erlduna Roadhouse and the turning point off the highway to Uluru. This was also a large area of a roadhouse, restaurant, tavern, caravan park and motel, and even an attached emu farm. Something different to look at while we ate our sandwiches!

 

Finally, at about 4pm,  we arrived at our destination for the next two nights, Yulara. Yulara is the service town for nearby (20km away) Uluru – or Ayers Rock as it used to be known. It  mainly consists of resorts, one caravan park, a few tourist shops, and a camel farm. There is also an airport where a lot of international tourists fly in.

After a quick check in, we unhitched the van, and jumped back in the car for the 20km drive out to the Rock, passing through the Ranger station and paying entry to the National Park (3 day pass $25 per adult). Then it was off to the Cultural Centre to find out about the local tours and forthcoming weather conditions, etc.  We found out there would be a guided walking tour (Marla walk) by the Ranger at 10.00am the next morning, involving talks, cave visits, etc, so that’s what we decided to do as part of our own base walk around the whole rock (10kms).

 

The boys briefly thought about doing the rock climb, but staff actively discourage anyone from climbing it these days, and tomorrow it was closed to walkers. Three weeks ago a Korean tourist had almost fallen to his death, after attempting a shortcut off the main path, and so the staff were still a bit jumpy. The manager was telling me that it was only by pure chance that the Dalai Lama was visiting the next day, so they happened to have the special police onsite, who were able to extricate him from  crevice with a fractured skull and pelvis after 26 hours! Yipes!

Sam was fascinated by the amazing hand carved items in the gallery by the local indigenous people, and stood watching a short video showing how they burned patterns into carved wooden objects, until we dragged him away. Lots of history and culture to take in, and absorb. 

Then it was off to the sunset viewing car park, to watch what we had driven all this way for – the ever-changing, fascinating Australian icon, Uluru. As we watched, the rock changed from orange, to purple to brown in the darkening light. Quite an amazing experience.  Then it was home for a bbq at the caravan park, and into bed reading for another adventure in the morning.