The red center

It's time to finally sleep in a hotel again, in a real bed and not on a padded board. Tonight was not only hard, but also cold. The temperature dropped to 16 degrees at night. It was cold. It's good that our warm blanket is underneath us as padding. Only 4 more days.

Day 3 on the highway.

Uluru is only about 5 hours away. We actually wanted to leave early, but we got caught up talking to our camping neighbors. So we didn't get on the highway until 9:30. There's nothing new in the third stretch either. However, today we learned the difference between cattle and stocks.

Cattle are black or brown, rather bushy-haired cattle. Stocks are rather gray, naked cattle with droopy ears. Do you remember the Marlboro advertising? The good-looking, tanned cowboy who casually rides his horse and drives the herd of cattle in front of him.

The Cowboy 2.0 puts up a sign "Caution Stocks - drive 40 kmh" and then lies down in his quad and sleeps. What has become of this world!

There's nothing to see in this section either, so we can let our thoughts wander again.

Who invented the cruise control? Was it an American or an Australian? Which is bigger, America or Australia? What motivates a cyclist to ride through this nothingness in the heat? Why do they cut the dry grass along the roadside here?

And then finally, after an eternity, the mountain of mountains. Majestic and huge from a distance. And Carsten says, "it's not round enough, it's not". - and he was right. It was Mount Conner. We were still 100 km away from Ayers Rock. So we continue through the dreary wasteland. I imagined the desert to be without trees. 

What I also didn't know was that there are not only sand deserts, but also ice deserts (Antarctica), rock deserts and much more. We reach the campsite around 15:00. Not much time left, because we will be picked up at 17:30 for the booked sunset tour with a glass of champagne and cheese crackers. And as was already hinted on the way there, today was the only day of the year when the sun hides behind clouds during the sunset. Ayers Rock looks like a brown pile.

Too bad, but at least we were drunk (it was more than just one glass) and full afterwards.

Hopefully the clouds will be gone for the sunrise tomorrow morning - fingers crossed.