Uluru

EARLY the next morning (well at least I got 4 hours of sleep) I got on board a tour bus and headed down the highway toward Uluru...

Not too much to see along the way (although I still found myself fascintated by the red sands of the outback.. in between taking 15 min catnaps...). We stopped off a camel farm (used for racing actually) so I could see what I'd eaten the night before ;) I also a dingo up close (which looked like the nicest house dog you could imagine... pretty ferocious in the wild though).... and some wild horses along with way (they call them Brommies out here)....

We got into Yulara (next to Uluru - Ayer's Rock) just in time for me to get down there and take a hike around the base of it (the Aboriginals had closed the climb to the top down to the heat... it was only in the 90's... I think they take whatever excuse they can to keep people off of it... they see it as a sacred place... which is also why there are signs all over the place saying not to take pictures of the rock - hopefully I didn't steal any soles or whatever from the rock, but I did take a few pics ;0)

There were some very cool formation in the rock as you got closer to it. Including some that looked like very familiar objects...

It's funny - the aboriginals had all these really intricate stories about the creation (or dreamtime as they call it) incorporating spirits of animals (which are really people) into the rock formations around them... such as the giant bad tempered lizard Lungkata below).... but they seemed to totally ignore what I think is obviously a huge whale... maybe they hadn't made it down to the ocean by then...

There are very few rock paintings by the aboriginals as they used materials that were easily washed away by rain and really depended on oral storytelling more than pictoral ones anwyay... but there were a few around...

I also found some "real" monsters along they way... that is one NASTY bug !!!

I finally found myself in an ancient waterhole that had been used for thousands of years by animals and aboriginals alike for thousands of years and had a quick nap before hooking up with the tour bus for a trip back out to watch the susnet on Uluru... it was MAGNIFICANT ;0)

Then we headed back to the Outback Pioneer Hostel and I took a dip in the pool and had some kangaroo for dinner - the backpackers were all singing drunken country songs at the bar so I made it an early night...