At Ayers Rock airport we were met by our guides Kieran and Jeff from Wayoutback travel with a mini bus. They took us directly to Uluru, as the Anangu Aborigines call the mountain we refer to as Ayers Rock. Part of our travel group was already waiting.there for us. They had taken the bus from Alice Springs to Uluru.
Before we could explore Uluru filling up the water bottles was our first task at hand, something we would be repeating about a hundred times over the next three days Even the kids got used to drinking a zip of water at regular intervals quite quickly. Though August has turned out to be the perfect time for travel to Australia so far the weather was warm and dry with quite some wind at some places. So you really had to keep hydrating.
With the bottles full to the brim we then set off to the first site at the rock, the Ananu childrens cave. It was full of drawings done by children who would be taught indigenous wisdom through story telling. We learned about how the “mala”, the ancestral spirits came to Uluru and started their life there with a life long celebration to honor the perfect conditions Uluru offered for them.
We then moved on to the men’s cave (where they did “men’s business” according to the guide- whatever that is…) and later on to the women’s cave (you probably guessed, that’s where food preparation was going on…) Here the story continued. With our new found knowledge, Kieran pointed out that we had now reached the wisdom of an Aborigines child of about three years of age.
Equipped with the basis of Ananu wisdom he then sent us on a 10 km hike around Uluru for us to “read” the rest of the story ourselves. He compared the markings on the rock to a story book that told the mala story.
The most impressive site at the rock for me was the water hole which according to the Ananu was inhabited by a water snake. The place was full of tourists but the minute I set down there I felt peaceful and calm. I could have stayed forever.
Unfortunately though we could not stay as the sun was about to go down and we wanted to head to a view point on a dune to see the sun set. From there we were rewarded with a spectacular view of Uluru as it changed colores from a ocher brown to bright red. A glass “bubbly” (sparkling wine) in hand we felt the magic of the place sweep us up.
When we reached our camp for the night it was already pitxh dark and it started getting really cold. So we lit a fire and set up our tents. Only F and K ended up sleeping in them though. B and I opted for the swags instead. Swags are a sort of canvas sleeping bag with a built-in matress. You snuggle up on them with a normal sleeping bag and then zip them up.
A note on our travel planning: We keep saying that we are glad we opted for the smaller companies on this trip like Wayouback with just a few tourists because seeing these huge buses made us realize again how I do NOT want to travel.
11.8.