Tuesday 19th March 2019 - to Uluru

We had a couple of hours this morning before we were due to be picked up to go to the airport and had thought we would get out into town. However we were checking our documents and realised there was a bit of a discrepancy on times. It took a little while to sort out by which time there was really only time to have a coffee and catch up on the blog! As it happened the taxi was then really late, memories of Port Douglas there!, and only arrived at the point the hotel were calling a cab for us. Alice Springs is a tiny airport so no queues at check-in, and we had a few minutes to spare, but we are not good at cutting it so fine!

The flight to Ayers Rock, as the airport is known, was barely 50 minutes, and all you could see was the desert, dry river beds and lakes, and scrub beneath you. However we were on the right side of the plane when the rock came into view. This huge rock standing up in the middle of the desert with flat plains around it. It is very imposing. We could also see Kata Tjuta, also known as The Olgas, dome shaped rocks that have a spiritual significance as well for the Aborigine people. Smaller, much more uneven with gorges between them, but with more time, somewhere else to visit!

We arrived at our hotel in the early afternoon and took ourselves straight to the tourist information centre to sort out what we were going to do in the less than 2 days here. The choice was enormous and we had talked through some of our options with Julia and Ross which meant that we had narrowed down our options considerably! Choices made it was back to the hotel to do some washing! With the temperature at about 36 degrees I figured that it wouldn’t take long to dry!

After an early dinner (lunch had been missed because of the flight, although we had had a later breakfast than usual), we went out with a guide to have a look at the night sky with the help of his knowledge and a fairly large telescope. At 8pm it was beautifully warm, so no jumper, just closed in shoes! 🤔😱 🐍 We walked away from the resort, along a sandy path, using torches to guide us, to where he had set up the telescope. Our timing wasn’t great as there was a full moon, so many of the stars weren’t visible as it was too light! However that didn’t stop us seeing Mars, some of the zodiac, the southern cross, and we had a lesson in finding south from it! Not sure if that will be useful when we get home!!

Using the telescope we could see the southern pleiades, a globular cluster, an open cluster and various other things. Now I can’t remember what was what, but I do remember seeing a group of stars very close together that sparkled like a disco ball, and another cluster that had 3 stars in a straight line that looked like traffic lights! At the end we had a look at the moon that had a hazy cloud over it. He said this would make it easier to look at as some of the intense light would not be there. It was amazing! So much detail with the craters and other features. We really enjoyed it! Geoff would now like a telescope but I have said that sitting out at home in winter on a clear night won’t be the same as sitting out here when it’s still 28 degrees!