Let's go to Ayers Rock!

From Cairns, we decided to drive to the iconic Uluru or Ayers Rock, the landmark of Australia. For the Aboriginal people in this area, the Anangu, it is a sacred mountain.

It took us nearly three days to get to Alice Springs. There wasn't much to see along the way. Small towns, a few gas stations and roadhouses, lots of road trains. These are really massive, some over 50 meters long. The sweet and absolutely grotesque smell of decay, which accompanied us constantly on the way to Uluru, comes from the many dead kangaroos and cows that were run over by the road trains and now rotting on the side of the road.

There are also wrecked cars lying by the roadside from time to time. Just like with the dead animals, it seems that no one here is cleaning them up...

Compared to the other cities we passed on our way, Alice Springs is a "big city". Here and in the other towns in the Outback, we saw many Aboriginal people for the first time. This was less the case in the cities on the East Coast. However, many Aboriginal people have alcohol problems and there is (as a result) a lot of crime, especially in Alice Springs. It is teeming with cops, even in front of every supermarket or bottle shop. (In case I haven't mentioned it yet: In Australia, you can't buy alcohol in supermarkets, you can only get it in special stores, the bottle shops.)

From Alice Springs, we had to drive another 4 hours to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. On the way there, we visited Kings Canyon. Just as we were about to start our hike, we saw our first dingo!

Unfortunately, we missed the sunset at Uluru... :-( But since we didn't want to miss the sunrise the next day, we stayed overnight in a freecamp near the national park. We borrowed thick sleeping bags from our hostel in Alice Springs, as it was only 6 degrees cold at night. In return, we were rewarded with a dreamy starry sky!

At half past four the next morning, the alarm went off - we wanted to be there at six o'clock sharp when the national park opened its gates. It was freezing cold! Nevertheless, a crowd of people had moved to Uluru to admire the spectacle. It is already a gigantic sight when you see the mountain for the first time! When it finally became light, we were completely frozen!

If you have a little more time, you can walk around Uluru in a few hours. But we didn't have that much time because we also wanted to see the Kata Tjuta rocks on this day, three-quarters of an hour from Uluru. They are also quite impressive and in some cases even higher than Ayers Rock.

We spent another night in Alice Springs and the next day headed towards Darwin and the tropical north of Australia.