She's a mighty big Rock .....

Friday 7th August 2009
The nights in Alice are pretty cold and we have had the heater going every morning with temperatures between 1 and 2°C. By 8am the sun comes over the MacDonnell Ranges and it's quite pleasant. We said goodbye to Rex and Sue and got on the road by 8:15 am, they headed North but our track took us down the Stuart Hwy in a Southerly direction. We soon realized how unique the Landscape at Alice Springs is. North and South of Alice it's mainly flat but Alice is nestled in amongst the many hills which form the MacDonnell Ranges, I can see why people settled in Alice.
After driving 200km South we reached Erldunda where we refuelled and turned off the Stuart Hwy only 70km North of the border to South Australia. The next part of the track took us another 240km to the West past Mt.Conner and through Mt.Ebenezer and Curtin Springs and finally arriving at Yulara where we checked into the Caravan Park at "Ayers Rock Resort", a few km's up the road from the Big Rock.
After a late lunch and a chat with the neighbours Andrea and I went for a drive to the Big Rock, called Uluru (Ayers Rock). I must say that Uluru wasn't on the top of my things to see but when we got up close to the Rock I was impressed. It is absoluteley massive, smooth on the outside and set in flat country. Certainly the most impressive monolith I have every seen. Uluru is one of the worlds top five tourist destinations, so you can imagine that everything is well organized and well managed and both cars and buses are catered for. After a quick walk through the cultural centre we went back to fetch Ilse and Alexander and then headed to the "Sunset Carpark" were we were amongst many other cars that had come to this vantage point to see and photograph the sunset on Uluru. The colours were nice, changing from bright orange to deep red as the sun was setting behind us bathing the Rock and its surrounds in pastel colours. It's very easy to see that this Rock would leave people in awe by it's size and by its colours - these are the colours that define the Australian Outback.
On the way back to the caravan, driving towards the west, we saw the silhouette of the Olgas against the post sunset sky with its yellow colours. By the time we got back to the caravan the sky in the West was a deep red against the backdrop of the endless desert going all the way to WA. Another beautiful day in the Australian Outback is coming to an end and I expect another cool night is ahead of us.