Day Seven - Heading Bush

Crossing the border...
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I'm trying not to be a pessimist and think that we are more than halfway through with the trip but I'm having so much fun that I don't want it to end! I had a strange dream that I could have sworn was real during the night (probably inspired by Sarah and Stu coming back to camp late) where Joe moved his swag out from under the tarp and told me that I could move out, it wasn't raining anymore. At the time I thought it was rather rude of him to wake me up to tell me that I could move so I was really shocked to wake up in the morning and find everyone still settled in under the tarp. I clarified with Joe later that it was obviously a dream.

The car at sunrise on the road (I was opening a gate)
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It was still dark when Joe got us all up and it was tough to get out of my swag. In the madness to get all of our gear into the trailer in the short shower we had the night before all of my stuff was now at the bottom of the pile and I didn't feel like dragging it out. Of course, this meant that I couldn't brush my teeth or wash my face and I was feeling a bit gross as a result.

I ended up in the front seat again and thankfully Rachel volunteered to join me, it made it a bit better having someone small next to me (no offense to Stu, he certainly isn't fat or anything, you just need all the room you can get up there!). As I was sitting next to the door I had the job of jumping out and opening all of the numerous cattle gates we passed through. Before we hit the first gate though we passed over the boarder between the states of South Australia and Northern Territory, see the photo. I had the chance to take a great photo of the car at sunrise at my first gate stop, check it out as it was really beautiful!

I didn't expect to see a camel cart on the road in Australia!
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As we were pressed for time we didn't take the 12 Km diversion to Lambert Centre, the geographical center of Australia, but does passing the sign for the turnoff count? 12 Km isn't that far off you know....

We reached Kulgera by 11:00 AM, this was the first paved road and traffic I had seen since leaving Coober Pedy so it was kind of shocking to see tourist buses and lots of campers on the road after this point. We were on the very main path to Uluru, or Ayer's Rock. On the way I was even more shocked to see a cart being pulled by a camel! Am I in India again? I learned that the Afghan people that helped build the Ghan (after Afghan) Railroad used the camels for transport and the camels were released into the wild after the railroad rendered them obsolete. Once again an introduced species has proven to be quite the pest and I think that they have problems with the camels crowding out other native species for food.

The sunset madness at Uluru - can you believe these people had champaigne?
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We stopped off at a tourist center/Aboriginal art gallery on the way and I was really impressed with the artwork. If only I had the money in my budget and room in my bag.....

We made it to Uluru in time to visit the information center, a really well designed set of buildings with an informative narrative about the rock along with a video and some more great art stores. We didn't have too much time to spend because we had to make it to the sunset viewing point but we did get to drive around Uluru before we settled in to watch the view and I have to admit that Uluru really is quite impressive! Almost every feature has a story associated with it, but we are only allowed to know a few of them.

Sunset without the people...I wish!
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What was NOT impressive was the spectacle we arrived in time to witness at the sunset viewing point. We pulled up and secured a good parking spot. We ended up climbing up on top of the car and trailer to get above the crowds of people that were quickly arriving. Awaiting the tour bus crowd were caterers with glasses of champagne and hors d'ourves. It was quite the impressive spread but not what I wanted to see while watching a sunset. I could have done without the crowds. It certainly made me value our time alone in the outback up to this point! I think that some of the buses started up the minute after the sun had sunk behind the horizon. I was very glad to see everyone go and we were almost the last group to leave.

After securing our campsite at the very busy campground in nearby Yulara we settled in for the night. Or I should say that I settled in for the night. I was SO tired that  I didn't even want to eat dinner and I rolled out my swag and was asleep before everyone had started cleaning up from dinner. We had another really early morning ahead of us to see the sunrise at Uluru.