Aussie pics - Ayers Rocks

Ayers Rock (Uluru) was such an amazing place - truly in the dead middle of the country and there ain't nothing else around except a lot of red dirt and desert.  (On a side note, am I the only one that always accidentally spells desert as DESSERT?  I think that shows where's my head's at).  Ahem.  Moving on.

Anyhoo - it's the craziest flying in, it's such flat and red land, there's nothing nothing nothing and then WHAMO this huge beautiful red rock out of nowhere!  No wonder the Aboriginal natives found it so precious and sacred - that thing is amazing.

The resort nearby is truly the only thing going and we had a great time hanging there for a few days. 

When we first got there it was crazy hot but then a cool sandstorm came in and made things cooler so we enjoyed the pool for a while. 

Unfortunately, the sand storm cancelled our dinner plans (out in the middle of the desert, watching the stars, more on that later), so we just ate at one of the restaurants on the resort and took it easy.  The next day we hiked around the rock and it took over 3 hours and 5 liters of water, holy moly!!!  It was such a beautiful hike, so special and quiet - you could absolutely feel the spirituality of the place.  For most of it, it was just Rob and I, we seldom saw other people.

I think this is one of my favorite videos of the trip, slays me every time!!!  I of course was going for an artistic shot of how remote and desolate it was out there, and I wanted to show how huge and glorious that sacred rock was...and then this weirdo came out of nowhere :)  hahahahaha!!!

Here are some sampling of pics from our hike:

We cracked ourselves up, we had a false alarm dingo sighting.  Now, to be fair, there was the movie, and the Seinfeld reference and tons of signs telling us to be wary of dingos, so when we saw this dude (followed by 4 other just like him)

 we totally freaked out and started yelling.  Poor thing was probably like "what are these weird whities screaming at?" because turns out, they were domesticated dogs that belonged to the local Aboriginals, as we found out later from a park ranger.  Hmmm, good to know.  I still like to say we faced off with a dingo, though.  You'd be proud, Elaine.

 

 

 Some aboriginal cave drawings, so cool!

 

 

That night was so cool, we had dinner out in the middle of the desert called the Sounds of Silence - we watched the sun set over Uluru, sipped on champagne and met some awesome people.  It was sooo much fun!
Wild camel!  Who knew there were such things?  :)

 

 I'm telling you, I'm all about eating dinner in the middle of the silence desert, but eating gourmet food on linen tablecloths and surrounded by lovely company.  We had such a special night chatting with the other people at our table.

 The next day we rode camels at sunrise and it was simply one of my most favorite things we've ever done - sooo much fun!!!  We camel's name was Lazy Daisy which is misleading on loads of levels - not only because he's a HE but also was the champion camel racer for years and years in Aussie!  And now he's a lazy old man :)  Rob's camel was named Nico and he was a belching buddy.  He was so cute, his face was next to me the whole time, and he kept nuzzling me and burping at me to just let me know he loved me.
And right on command, here's cute but gaseous Nico belching for me!  Adorable...and again one of my favorite videos of the trip, haha!

 Here's some pics from our fun day:

 

 

 

 

And here's the link to all the pics on our Picassa album...I'm sure you're becoming a pro by this point!