Another good buffet at six and checked out by 7:30. We drove to Kathleen Springs and hiked again to the pond at the head of the canyon. Lovely flowers but few birds except a few pretty red, black and white Mistletoe Birds.
We started the 350 km drive from Kings Canyon to Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) at 9:30 passing through areas of Spinifex grass and Desert Oaks, and Mulga woodlands. Hilary was driving when she yelped and screeched to a stop, made a U-turn and drove back 100 yards. There in the Mulga trees were two Major Mitchell’s Cockatoos, the birds Bob most wanted to see in Australia! One flew away, but the other, a female, remained in the tree, ripping small branches off and eating the attached Mulga pods. The male and females are identical except that the male has a black eyes and the female red. They both are large snowy white parrots with pale pink breasts and deep coral coloring above their beaks, on their crest, and under their wings. It was really thrilling to get such good views of such a beautiful bird that we had been searching for so long!
We stopped in Curtin Spring, the only stop on the way, for a snack, and a look at Mt Conner, which looks rather like Uluru and often fools people, and would have fooled us if Lonely Planet hadn’t warned us.
We drove on and suddenly could see the purple shape of Uluru on the horizon. It really is amazing, even though you have seen images of it everywhere. When you come upon it, rising suddenly out of the flat surrounding plain, it is stunning, other worldly, and really unique.
We stopped at the Ayers Rock Resort, several hotels all run by Voyages, to check in. The cheapest rooms are $400, but we had cleverly reserved a two-bedroom condo at their Emu Walk hotel for the three of us, very pretty, 3-level with full kitchen. A small shopping center is right next-door and we stocked up on food, dumped our luggage and drove onto the Rock.
The smooth rock faces drop vertically into the sand and the sides are streaked with black and gray and studded with caves of all sizes. We stopped at the Cultural Centre for some interesting exhibits on Aboriginal mythology, ice cream and a Red Centre flower book before driving around the rock and watching its changing colors in the late afternoon sun.
We returned to the Resort and went to the Frontier Hotel where you can buy take-out liquor and got a bottle of wine for dinner and had cans of “Bundy ‘n’ Cola”, premixed Aussie rum and coke. Pretty bad but did the trick.
Home for delicious dinner of scrambled eggs, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes and the bottle of wine.
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