Change In Plans

SUNSET DINNER AT ULURU

Greetings from Uluru!

After the hike yesterday, we had a nice afternoon. Zola got his Pokemon book - a 212-page “first annual” compilation of all facts relating to the world of Pokemon. After an hour, he said, “I thought I knew everything about Pokemon, but I don’t know anything. This is awesome!” Tallulah got the wooden echidna puzzle (an echidna is like an Australian porcupine, but cuddlier). She assembled the puzzle 20 times or so, before returning her attention to her Little Pet Shop.

In the evening, we bent a “no kids under 10 rule” a little, and signed up for an outdoor dinner in the desert. We had iconic sunset views of Uluru and of Kata Tjuta as we drank champagne on a sand dune. Once the sun set, even the flies went away.

For dinner, we seated ourselves at a table of people who seemed least likely to mind that we had kids. India made friends with a young interior designer from Omaha. The two of them swapped ideas on boutique hotels, post-modern architecture, and clean lines for two hours.

The rest of the people at our table were awesome: travelers from Australia and all over the world. We had a swirling discussion about economic development, India (the place), the nature of corruption, the human condition, the appropriate role of religion in society. It was my idea of a wonderful dinner-party conversation.

Late in the evening, the staff turned out all of the lights, and we marveled at the night sky. They had an astronomer with a bright flashlight point out the constellations and planets. It was magical.

Both kids fell asleep at the table, and had to be rolled into bed when after the bus ride back to the hotel. It was a very nice end to our day at Uluru.

We are packing now, and heading to the airport in an hour. Tallulah and I are hoping to go for a swim once Zola finishes his on-line math lesson.

Overall, I don’t think we would recommend the Uluru trip to another family, at least not during the Australian summer. Apparently there are no flies in the winter months.

Flies notwithstanding, a number of other factors made this a relatively low value-for-money experience:

• The extortionate prices of the hotel group that has a monopoly on accommodation, transport, and attractions (eg, $45 for a 10-minute shuttle bus ride out to the rock),
• The multiple ant infestations in our hotel room, as well as in the restaurants, and in other public spaces
• Complete lack of control over our time and movement, driven by assembly-line procesing of the tourist hordes. There are no taxis, and practically no one drives here.  Anyone who has been to Disney World knows exactly what I mean
• Basically competent, but impersonal and inflexible service at the hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc.  See “Disney World” comment above.

We were very spoiled by our experiences on Kangaroo Island and at Angorichina Station.  That said, the numbers of people coming to Uluru has declined year after year during the last decade.  I don’t think we are the only people to come away thinking it wasn’t so great.  Maybe I am just not in touch with my spiritual side, and I never felt the magic.

We booked the Uluru part of our Australia trip at my insistence, and despite India’s significant reservations. Smart woman, good travel instincts.  Live and learn.

More adventure awaits: Sydney, Lord Howe Island, New Zealand.  Onward.

Greetings from Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, in the hot heart of the Australian Outback.

This morning we did a guided sunrise walk around the base of Uluru.  Climbing on the rock itself is technically legal, but considered very insensitive to Aboriginal beliefs.  So the done thing is to walk around the base; about 11 kilometers on a well trodden footpath.

Seeing the colors of the rock change at sunrise is quite spectacular, and that alone may be worth the trip.  That said, this morning’s walk was a character-building experience of the first order.

We had gotten off to a good start.  I had a conference call scheduled for 4:30 am, local time.  The call was canceled at the last minute, and we all got to sleep in until about 5:15.  The cancellation also meant that I wasn’t trying to juggle a phone and sound professional while carrying Tallulah and finding Zola’s shoes.  

When our group of 13 stepped off  the bus, at the base of the rock, the weather was relatively cool (about 28 degrees, or 83 Fahrenheit), and a strong breeze was blowing.  The breeze kept the flies off.  We hoisted Tallulah onto my shoulders, and set off on the path.  Immediately, the breeze died and the character building began.  

Rather than whining (explicitly) about the experience, I thought it would be better to count our blessings, and enumerate the ways that the walk could have been worse.  For example, it would have been worse if:

The flies had been biting insects - they appear to be just common small houseflies.  Slow, and pretty easy to swat, and non-biting.  There were just a lot of them -a Biblical amount of them- and they seek moisture.  They congregate, disgustingly, around the eyes, lips and nostrils.

We had lost all four of the mesh-net hats, instead of two of them - the little mesh-net hats work pretty well in keeping the flies off the skin.  Fortunately at least Tallulah and Zola had the benefit of them.  We have no idea how the other two family mesh-nets got lost between last night and this morning.

The ranger’s fly repellent cream had been toxic instead of just ineffective- we slathered this on liberally when he saw that India and I were covered in flies.  It was irritating, particularly when sweat dripped it into my eyes, and it was completely ineffective, but it does not appear to have any harmful physical effects

There had been more flies - actually, I don’t think there could have been more.  There is something missing in the Uluru ecosystem -birds, or bats, or frogs- that should be keeping the fly population.  None of these predators survive here, so the lack of moisture is the only check.  After heavy rains in November and December, the population is at record levels.

You are probably gathering that there were a lot of flies on the Uluru base walk.  And there were.  The hike could also have been worse if:

Our guide had stretched the 2.5 hour walk into 6 hours  - He only stretched it to 5.5 hours.  Between frequent (and very long-winded) stops to tell us about Aboriginal myth and legend, and a leisurely, fly-covered Continental breakfast from our backpacks, we were out there for a long time.  Dozens of other groups passed us on the trail.  It was difficult to read the other people in our group, so I didn’t feel comfortable asking, quietly, if we could race around the path and have the interpretive discussion in the bus.

It had gotten really hot - Once the sun came up, the temperature soared from about 28 degrees to about 40 (or just over 100 Fahrenheit).  As they say, though, it is a dry heat.  Also, apparently, it gets much hotter sometimes, even in the early mornings. 

Both kids weren’t happy playing in the dirt - As the guide’s soliloquies got longer and weirder, Zola and Tallulah just dropped to the ground and pretended they were at the beach.  The red sand caked on their arms and legs, adhered by sunscreen and bug repellent.  Someone remarked that they looked as though they had been at the spray-tanning booth.  They were happy, though.

Any of us had had a major sense-of-humor failure - India and I both expressed some frustration early on, but agreed to revel in the absurdity of the situation.  To keep the kids happy and upbeat, we used the old-fashioned parenting technique of bribery.  The promise of a coveted Pokemon book for Zola, and a new echidna puzzle for Lu was enough to maintain reasonably high morale for the duration.  Actually, both kids were total troopers.  It would have been much worse iof they hadn’t been.

Having traveled for so many months, we have learned when to pull the ripcord on a bad tour.  About 9 kilometers, and 4 hours, into the hike, India and I decided to take control over our destinies a little.  We told the guide that the kids were melting.  Rather than finish the walk with the group (another 90 minutes for 2 kilometers!), we would walk 1.5 kilometers to the Cultural Center, and wait for them there.  He agreed, grudgingly, to pick us up in the parking lot.  

20 very hot minutes later we were drinking cold water and looking at Aboriginal art, in an air-conditioned and fly-free gallery.  To a certain extent we felt badly about abandoning the walk and the group.  Back at the hotel, we spoke to two Scottish couples who had stayed with the guide for the duration.  They said, “The moment you left, we all realized that we should have done the same thing.  Glory, that man could talk!”

We are glad that we did the Uluru walk, and we are proud of how our kids handled it.  We are also glad to have seen the cultural center, trying to figure out some more about the baffling Aboriginal culture.

Tomorrow we fly back to Sydney for a night, and then off to more adventures in Australia.