Thomas Family Road Trip: Ayers Rock (15/11/11

Monday

Spent tonight at Marla, a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. We were surprised though – caravan park was nice with lawn, pool, spa, supermarket and pub! Not that we were there for long – arrived at 8pm and on the road the next morning at 8am. Fuelled up at $1.90/L.

Tuesday

After a massive 36 hours and approximately 1300kms, we arrived to a surprisingly cool (28 degrees) Yulara (town site nearest Ayers Rock). It started raining 50kms before our arrival. The cooler weather and rain was welcomed by us – beats the last two days of 38 degrees. Donna and the kids cooled off in the pool while Simon set up camp (poor Simon!). We appreciated the cool change even more when people told us it was 42 degrees here yesterday! Apparently it is very uncommon to have rain at Ayers Rock this time of the year. Our 1^st sight of the famous Ayers Rock was driving into town. We got a closer look from a lookout at the caravan park and we couldn’t wait until the next day to see it up close and start exploring.

Wednesday

We made the 20km drive to Ayers Rock from the caravan park to start exploring. Thankfully the cooler weather and clouds were still with us, which made walking the various tracks much more enjoyable. Much to Simon’s disappointment the climbing track to the summit was closed due to rain. Donna was somewhat relieved – had big intentions of doing the climb but once I saw how steep it was and the fact most of it involved hanging onto a railing made of chain I became a bit apprehensive. The climb up would have been fine; I was more worried about the climb down!!! We were later told that they use any excuse to close the climb, so we were not holding out too much hope that it would be open during our stay.

Blown away by the size of the rock – a massive rock in the middle of nowhere. WOW!!!!!!

By the afternoon it was hot, so we spent the afternoon in the pool.

Then back out to Ayers Rock for drinks, dinner and sunset. Just beautiful!!

Thank goodness for our air conditioner! We definitely got value for money at the caravan park in power alone – it was on nonstop from this morning until we left. Was still 35 degrees at 8pm!

Thursday

After discovering once again that the Ayers Rock climb was closed today, we spent the morning at the Olgas about 50kms from Yulara. (See separate post on The Olgas). All finished and home and in the air con by 11.30. 36 today! Another afternoon in the pool. We met some other families with kids the same age as Chloe, so Chloe had great fun with them, while Ben had a ball swimming up and down the pool with his snorkel and goggles. An early night in preparation for sunrise at Ayers Rock tomorrow.

Friday

Up at 5am to be out at Ayers Rock by 5.50 for sunrise. Cannot believe we actually woke up our sleeping children. Needless to say they were not very happy at being woken up, although we did explain to them that we feel like this every morning when they wake us up – PAYBACK!

After 3 days here it was only this morning that we discovered we had not adjusted our clocks back an hour (we thought NT and SA were on same time!!) so in fact we got up at 4am and were VERY early for sunrise. On the up side we were the 1^st ones at the viewing platform and got prime positions. The sunrise did not disappoint. Amazing how different Ayers Rock and the Olgas looked at different times of the day.

The climb was once again closed and as this was our last day we had run out of chances to do the climb. Poor Simon.

Donna spent the next almost 2 hours doing the “base walk” which does a full lap around Ayers Rock – 10.4kms. Thankfully I had finished by 8am as it was already hot. Another hot day.

We all loved Ayers Rock and the Olgas. So glad we made the big drive to see this amazing part of our country – so unique and beautiful – we have all fallen in love!

We had planned to stay until tomorrow, but as we had seen everything we wanted to see we thought we’d pack up a day early and move onto Kings Canyon. Fuelled up and paid the most for fuel we have all holiday - $2.123/L – OUCH! To make us feel even worse, it had gone up 20c/L overnight!!!

Until Kings Canyon, take care xxxx