10 August After Kelli’s
relentless planning and desire to drive 15 hours to see a red rock, sorry, an ‘ageless Australian icon’, we finally set sail on our 3200 km roundtrip to see Uluru, or Ayers Rock. For those like me that aren’t very cultured, it’s the big red monolith that dons the many tourism ads and events showcasing Australia. It’s long been in the hands of the local aborigines, but has also become a tourist destination for those who want to venture from the pristine, and somewhat populated coastline portion of Australia into the Northern Territory’s outback.
We began around 1:30 in the afternoon on Friday after work and school. Grandma and Grandpa Whetstone arrived on the scene earlier this week and whether they wanted to or not, they packed into our minivan along with three rambunctious kids and enough supplies to last us through a night if we were to get stranded along the forsaken highway tying north Darwin to south Adelaide. Before getting too far we stopped in at the bakery in Port Wakefield for some sausage rolls, meat pies and Cornish pasties (pronounced ‘pausty’ for us Yankees). We traveled north past Port Pirie and Port Augusta enjoying the green rolling hills and the Flinders Range mountains. The Gulf of St Vincent off to the west didn’t provide much of a view, but we hugged its coastline all the way to the top at Port Augusta and then set off into the endless expanse of red ocean of sand and shrubbery. There wasn’t too much wildlife to speak of on the way up. Jerry did point out two emus (pronounced eem’you’), but no kangaroos. We kept our eyes peeled for kangaroos which the native Aussies
claimed were infamous on that stretch of road, especially at the hours we were traveling. But, to our fortune (and chagrin) we didn’t see any. The kids did pretty well, especially with the new portable DVD players that G-pa and G-ma brought with them from the States. Hunter is a little harder to please, but he’s all for the Australian soft licorice … Collin had a hard time, once again, when it started getting dark. We kept telling him we were getting closer but that only works so long. And then you see the town lights off in the distance and that only works for so long, too. One nice distraction to the ‘are we there yet’ question was the amazing sunset. The skyline was as if you were looking out over the ocean, only it was endless dirt. Once i
t turned dark, though, it didn’t really matter. The rainbow or red, orange, yellow, green, blue and black was amazing. That and it stretched around a 1/3rd of the skyline and stayed around for probably 20 minutes. We finally made it to Woomera where we stayed a couple months ago for the rocket trial. To Collin’s delight, the rocket with the red nose was still there and he was happy to show it off to G-ma and G-pa. The night at the Eldo was uneventful. The stars were out in full force and provided an awesome scene to go to bed to. The only negative is that we went to bed around 9 and had to get up at 3 so we could make sure we made the next 1100 kms in enough time to see ‘the rock’ at sunset … and so the next leg begins …
11 August
Yes, today did begin at 3:30 in the morning … and didn’t end until we had seen Uluru at sunset. I think we were the only people stirring in all of Woomera at that hour of the morning and it was quite serene. The kids didn’t bat an eye about getting up and getting back in the car. They just asked for the DVD players and were content until later in the morning when they crashed and went back to sleep. We had roughly 1100 kms to go in one day and guessed it would be about 11 hours. Traveling through the outback doesn’t offer much opportunity for stopping or sightseeing, so really there was only one place to go … north. But, starting around 4 in the morning also meant that we were traveling in the middle of the night and that meant kangaroo danger. No sooner were we on the main A1 Stuart Highway than Jerry pointed out a huge kangaroo on the left hand side of the road. Of course, with the glare of the headlights, the early morning grogginess and such, we could easily be overestimating its size … but it would be fair to say that this was one of the biggest ‘roos we’d seen, probably around 5-6 feet tall and with huggo feet. Luckily the minute he saw us he went away from the road. It was nerve-wracking from that point on realizing that kangaroos were that close. We probably saw another 10 ‘roos before sunrise and were constantly on the lookout and wondering if one would come bounding across the road. At one point there was a ‘mob’ of 3 of them, but every time we saw some they responded by either just looking at us or hopping away from the road. There was another animal with shiny bright eyes that scurried across the road well ahead of our car, but we couldn’t make out what kind of animal it was. Sunrise was a most welcome sight and a relief to not have to worry so much about bushes that looked like kangaroos. The funny thing was that we never saw the kangaroos eyes light up like you do with other animals. You just had to try and make out there shape which made it difficult with all the shrubbery and such. In some places the road was lined with trees and you couldn’t see 10 feet beyond the road. The other cool part of the morning journey was a section of the road which was cleared a little more on the shoulder than other areas – and at the beginning and end of the section had the markings of a runway. Well, that’s exactly what it was … an emergency runway for planes that were in trouble in the outback. Alas, we made it through the morning and by 8:30 we were in the opal mining town of Coober Pedy. We’ll be staying there again Sunday night … It was funny because the whole
town is built around the opal mines which are basically surface holes. Everywhere you look there are mounds of dirt cast up around the countryside where they’ve used equipment to dig out the rocks … and they don’t bother to fill them so they have to quarantine off the entire area so people don’t fall into random holes and shafts. We stopped for gas and at a Podunk bakery for some nummy quiche and cheese/bacon rolls, a quick stop at a park full of dirt and dust to let the kids play and get dressed, and then were on the road again. It honestly reminded me of an old west town with sandy roads and weather-beaten wooden overhangs. It was quite the sight. There were tons of aborigines as well. All seemed to have the same type of look about them with is the same as you may see in a movie or such. The rest of the travel up through the upper end of South Australia was fairly uneventful. We did see a ‘heap’ of wedge-tailed eagles munching on the carcasses of dead kangaroos and cows – yes, the other road obstacle is the cow which aren’t too bright and not fenced from the roads. The eagles are amazing though. We didn’t get any good pictures of them on the way up, but hopefully we’ll have more luck on the way back. Someone said they are bigger than our bald eagles, and I wouldn’t doubt it. The legs themselves give the impression of a dog eating the road kill from a distance until you actually get closer and realize it’s a bird. We probably saw upwards of 20 of these eagles on the ground and in the air.
We crossed into the Northern Territory around 12:30 and got some more gas at a local pubbery. I forget the name, but it was something with a ‘k’ and aboriginal in nature. From there we kept the trek moving north and after another 2 hours made the turn off to go west to Uluru instead of pushing north further to Alice Springs. Going west we saw tons of dead cows on the sides of the road in various stages of decomposition – all the way to bones and skin for some of them. Kind of gross. There weren’t any signs of kangaroos or eagles though in this area.
The kids all did surprisingly well until we were within 20 kms of our destination and Collin had to stop for a bathroom break on the side of the road. That was entertaining in and of itself without going into further details. (I'll give you a hint--it's hard to go in a steady stream when you're laughing!) We got a simple one-room hotel room complete with a queen bed, two bunk beds and a fridge … and that’s about it. It was a nice little resort though which had everything from un-powered camp sites to a 5-star hotel which cost $1000 a night. Ours still cost $180 a night which is highway robbery, but it’s the only option for 50 miles around and you are stuck with it – and they can charge whatever they want. That’s ok though, all part of the adventure … and Australian economy.
Approaching the resort we finally caught a glimpse of the rock. It was pretty impressive. Rising up out of the sand without hardly another formations of rock or hills all around. There was another outcroppings of rocks called ‘the Olgas’ some 32 kms away from Uluru. After getting somew
hat settled we ventured into the park (another $25 per person!) and went right up the base. Everywhere you are bombarded with requests from the native aborigines to respect the rock as a spiritual part of there culture and not to climb it, yet they don’t forbid you from climbing (unless there is a 5% chance of rain or winds higher than 25 knots on the summit and they wouldn’t let you climb it.) They’ve apparently had 38 deaths and in their brochure of the park they have someone being taken off by ambulance wrapped in a sheet to try and dissuade you. Yet, when we got up to the base of the rock there were plenty of people make the ascent. It was kind of intimidating as this chain guides you up the face of a cliff with a shear drop on one side. Jerry climbed up to the point where the chain starts and I took the kids part way up where we took some pictures. The weather was a perfect calm and just right temperature. The rock was a brilliant red and in m
ost places appeared as a smooth, one-piece rock. In some places there was color disfiguration from rain and where whole pieces of rock had broken off. But, from a distance it just looked like a single large stone that someone plopped from the middle of the sky into the Australian outback. Pretty cool … We found a place to park for the sunset show. It reminded me of a drive in for watching movies as people were on top of their vehicles --- someone setting up dinners with champagne and the whole lot. As the sun set the rock went from an orangish-red to a brilliant, bright red. It was amazing … and continued to change different shades of red until the sun got too low and then it turned to a dull brown surrounded by a blue/purple haze of the night sky. I had my doubts about coming this far to see it, but the view we got for those brief 10 minutes was well worth the trip.
We summed up the evening with an ‘outback’ burger of fried egg, beets, beef, lettuce, and pineapple – plus a pizza of pumpkin, spinach, and ricotta cheese (Kelli’s choice (she wanted veggie pizza), and quite gross!) It was a fun setting with an old timer playing music on his guitar and a comfortable, peaceful evening.
Collin did provide us one unforgettable memory. We were traveling on the road and Savannah Kelli told Savannah that she had a ‘good eye’. Collin then turned to Savannah and said, ‘good eye, mate!’ That’s funny in and of itself, but then we realized where he was actually getting it from … all of the “g’day, mate!” that he hears here in Australia – he just happened to correlate the Australian accent of ‘good eye’ with ‘g’day’ … what a character … said something about the scenery outside the car.
12 August
So after the endless fun of the evening before, we decided we hadn’t had enough so we got up at 5:30 in order to see the sunrise. There were tons of people and from the location of the night before we were able to get an awesome view of Uluru silhouetted against the morning sky. Driving around the opposite side we parked and watched as it slowly turned from the dull brown of the evening before to the glowing red … and then gradually to the orangish-red that it would remain for the rest of the day. There were a lot of people out jostling for the best camera position, getting slightly irked when someone got in the way from the opposite side of the road, and speaking more foreign than English. It was quite entertaining … Jerry and I were hoping that we could make a quick ascent of the summit and then our plan was to hike around the base of the rock. But, the early morning weather decided it was going to take the high level winds at the top of the rock and cascade them down the western slope – right where the trail begun to go up. It obviously exceeded the 25 knot limit so we weren’t able to go up. It was slightly chilly (got down to 3’C the night before) so we decided to take a little drive to snap some pix at the overlook for ‘the Olgas’ – a lesser-known collection of boulders that resembled elephants (which DeeAnn mentioned) and a dragon (which Jerry claimed to see). It was a good little stopover. Collin raced the track to the lookout twice – one way was about 600m. Guess he had a lot of stored-up energy. Well, that energy came in handy as we returned to Uluru. The wind was still whipping but we decided to around the base – a 9.4 km trek which we expected to complete in 3-4 hours. On one side it was really nice and shaded. We took tons of pictures around the base with the kids and of all the different formations. It was amazing how the rock took on a completely different look when you were up close. There was plenty of different color from the years of cascading water during rainstorms and erosion. The rock also had a lot of crevices and broken off boulders lying at the base of the main rock. Between the red of the rocks, green and yellow foliage found a place to grow … and here and there you’d find groups of 
gum trees creating a shelter from the sun. In each ‘canyon’ of the rock was a black stripe down the middle where to water collected together and ran to ground. Quite spectacular ... So we kept stopping and taking pictures … and the kids kept trudging along. Hunter was in his stroller and quite content to take in the view. At times we had to lift him out of the sandy trail to keep moving, but by taking turns we managed. About half way through both Collin and Savannah started to peeter out --- they’d had enough but had done well. Unfortunately this is the part of the day when things started to get hot and it was on the sunny side of the rock. We just picked up the kids and kept moving at the best pace possible. Eventually we came around the east side of the rock and made it to the north … then finally got around the north side (which seemed to go forever!) and could see the ridge where you hike up … indicating we were almost there. Somehow we made the journey with all the kids still alive. When I asked Savannah if she liked the rock, her response 
was, ‘a little’. But, Collin said he enjoyed the hike as evident by the number of rocks and sticks he collected along the way. When we did get back the wind had died down and they were letting people on the rock. So, Jerry and I took a swig of water, a granola bar, and headed up. The chain leading up the face of the cliff went only about ¾’s of the way to the top, albeit the steepest portion. At one point you were literally 2 feet from a shear dropoff to the bottom. Slightly unnerving but you just kept your eyes in front of you and on the chain and next footing place. There was this litte Chinese girl and her parents who were moving up the rock. She couldn’t have been more than 7 and she just kept moving up the mountain with her parents in tow. There’s no way I would have let Savannah up there, but to each their own. The top where we made it was a leveled off portion and gave a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside. It was really pretty cool and worth the hike, although on the way down my legs were really feeling it …(This picture is Jessy reaching the top of the plateau.)
We had another 7 hour drive back to Coober Pedy, and it was already 2 in the afternoon so we decided we’d better set off. Kelli had the first shift so I sneaked a nap … after the obligatory 5 times of buckling and unbuckling my seat belt to fix DVD players, getting kids something to drink, settling disputes, etc. We did stop for gas at another Podunk station at $1.73 per liter before getting too far! There was an emu roaming the premises and a lady with a Mohawk behind the counter, and a bloke pumped our gas for us, gave us a paper receipt with a handwritten total for the amount of gas … and we were out of there. And then we weren’t down the road before Jerry shouted that there were camels on the hill – sure enough, up 
on top of this little knoll about 50 yards away were 5 camels. Two of them were standing up looking at us, but the other three were just lying down. All of them were kind of looking at us like, what in the world – just as we were with them. We’d seen a dead carcass of a camel on the way in, but were quite surprised to see a live camel. Somehow they ended up here from immigrants and apparently they’ve really thrived in the outback … must remind them of home. At this point I fell asleep but they saw another group of them not too far away from the car … this time 8 of them! After 3 hours of driving it was my turn. We stopped at the N. Territory/S. Australia border and took some pictures and visited the outhouse of a rest stop. As Jerry pointed out, there wasn’t any smell in the outhouse --- crazy! Hunter was fighting mad getting back into the car, but he loved to play ‘little piggies’ and go ‘oh’ by hitting his head against the car seat while mimicking G-pa … so between that and food we managed to keep him distracted. Before we knew it, though, the sun was going down again and we were in ‘roo country going at 120 k’s an hour (~70 mph) keeping our eyes peeled for more kangaroos. There were also tons of ‘cow’ signs and handwritten ‘cattle caution’ signs. We rarely passed another car and only averaging a passing vehicle every 50 miles or so. It was nuts – probably the first car we saw in the distance was approaching and then all of the sudden he stopped on the other side of the road about 100 yards from us. I slowed down and then realized that there were 2 kan’d’aroos (as Collin would say) right in front of him just looking at us and him. We kept on going past, but I saw in my rearview mirror that he pulled further off the side of the road – as Jerry mentioned, he didn’t look like the type that was going to be taking pictures. We think they were going to have kangaroo steaks for dinner. We only saw another 3 kangaroos the rest of the evening, which was a relief. That doesn’t mean we didn’t spend the 4 hour drive on the edge of our seat. It was kind of like watching the climax of a horror movie for hours on end just waiting and anticipating another kangaroo from the plethora of bushes lining the road. At one point we had to pull over because Collin had to use the bathroom again (G-pa did the honors this time to avoid Kelli the embarrassment), and I took the opportunity to turn off the car lights in the middle of the outback with no other lights around. The amount of stars was incredible. It honestly looked like there was a cloud in the sky – but it was ‘only’ the milky way. I could have star gazed all night in that location. Anyway, driving the rest of the way was very eerie. It was as if we were in a fog of black. Even with your brights on, you could only see ¼ of a mile in front of you at one time – and at times it was as if the car road was floating in the middle of space with no land on either side of the road. Kind of cool until you realize that if you got a flat tire or had car problems you were just plumb out of luck (not to mention we remembered batteries but forgot a flashlight!) We finally did make it to Coober Pedy at around 10 at night. We stayed at a really nice underground motel with the room built into the side of the hill (to avoid the heat in the summer). It was awesome and I slept like a baby on the top bunk next to the rock ceiling …
We also had another 2 moments of Collin’s collinism. We were running back from the lookout and Collin was racing me. As I came up on his side he would run in front of me cutting me off. When we got back to the car, I mentioned that he was cutting me off as we ran back. Collin was then getting into the car and said, ‘yeh, I was flipping you off!’ Uh yeah … what do you say to that?
The other was when we stopped at a gas station in Marla – last town in S. Australia … anyway, Kelli was getting everyone settled with the DVD players, waters, blankets, whatever … then she turned and asked if there was anything else anyone needed, to which Collin responded, “Uh yeah, what about my birthday party next year?” Got to admit the kid has some serious forward thinking going on …
13 August
Contrary to some people (no names mentioned), the ceiling didn’t collapse on top of us and we survived the 
night in the hill. We had a quick breakfast and then spent the morning packing the car again and letting the kids run all over the place collecting their rocks into a collection. We did some prospecting, or ‘noodling’, in a local park where some ‘old timer’ at one time struck it rich looking for opals. The kids didn’t mind turning old rocks over and just enjoyed being out of the car and getting all dusty again. This dust was more of a white compared with the red from Uluru. But, when all’s said and done, dirt is dirt and it was everywhere! We wondered over to mainstreet and there was shop after shop of opals and aboriginal artifacts … not to mention aborigines themselves. The funning thing is that most of the shop owners were Europeans – Serbians, mainly. Guess if you want to escape everything they’ve gone through then the Outback is really getting out of the way. They were nice and we had a good chat with some of them. There were actually a lot of tourists around browsing the shops. They have a little airport nearby which takes tourists, probably from Adelaide, and brings them up to shop and them takes them back. Not a bad little vacation up through the heart of Australia …
Kelli ended up buying some opal jewelry and I got a didgeridoo (or however you spell it). The prices were a whole lot lower than anywhere else – a necklace that looked identical to Kelli’s Christmas present was 5x cheaper in Coober Pedy than in the city. Jerry even took a moment to chat with some of the local aborigine ladies … and there was also a big starship from some movie that flopped a while back. The kids didn’t last too long shopping though and we continued on to JB’s bakery for some more mince meat pies and sausage rolls then were back on the road south to Adelaide.
We finished the whole trip coming down through Woomera, Pt Augusta and Port Pirie without incident. WE did see a bunch of emus running around (5 in total I believe) … and had to drive another 3 hours in the dark looking for ‘roos, but happily this time around … we didn’t see any … alive. And so closes the next chapter
an we were packing our bags again and heading on the road. This time of course we had the added advantage of throwing in a plane trip and bus ride as part of the package … which helped convince them that this vacation would be different than the last. As it turned out, though, our trip to Uluru seemed to have brought out Hunter’s more aggressive side. We’d left the house early enough to stop by the 
s in her pull-along Dora suitcase. We arrived in 
a space for a café than a 40 story highrise building (we ended up on the 33rd floor facing towards the harbor – couldn’t see the Opera house because of other buildings but did have a view of the bridge and harbor along with the Sydney tower.) But, somehow everything expands once you get inside and there is plenty of room for a reception desk, elevators, etc. I’ve mentioned that we recently had friends from high school move to 
e end of a slide. Don’t ask me how he did that one. Hunter was up to his newly-found independence trooping everywhere and letting 
crossed the main entrance out into the ocean. There we hit some big swells that really rocked the boat. The kids liked them though and no one puked over the side. At Manly we walked a short distance to the beach where there was a large number of surfers in some pretty good breakers … dude. It wasn’t at all warm and so they were pretty hardy to be out there. We just let the kids play in the sand while we chatted and caught up on things from the past 10 or so years and Jerry/DeeAnn were off doing some window shopping. By the time we got back on the ferry it was nearly dark and we had a good chilly wind to fight on our way back to the city – nothing like a day at sea, arre matey!!! We went back to our place and had a hearty dinner of rotisserie chicken (the kids only managed ‘Macos’ (McDonald’s) but weren’t complaining – especially when the boys toy was a roboraptor!), while overlooking the city lights and listening to some of our newly-purchased didgeridoo music … couldn’t beat the ambience (minus the kids causing a ruckus in the back rooms of course.) We introduced Kevin and Stacy to the Tim Tam Slam (a type of chocolate covered wafer cookie which you bite the corners off the top and bottom and then suck hot chocolate through which melts the inside and makes for a heavenly treat …) We were all pretty tired to say the least but it was definitely a successful day of go go go …
and Jerry had 
sh for the exit (can’t really blame them …) We had a good time but before we knew it it was time to part ways again … we had some good ol’ Aussie creamy ice cream and then said our goodbyes to Kev/Stace and Savannah/Collin’s new friends. 
goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma Whetstone. The kids were still in groggy land from waking up and Collin was in his ‘rebellious’ mood for having been on vacation too long, but it was a sad moment when we had to part ways … it always is. We had a lot of good memories from their visit and hopefully captured a lot of them in picture and writing. Nothing can really replace spending time together, though … and thus we look forward to the next time when we will see all of our family back home. As such, we think that was our last set of visitors from the States. Hopefully the 
