My bucketlist trip No 2

[Justinf]

Sooooo, a third early morning wake up. Not too shabby for me as I'm an early riser anyway, but for an almost 16-year-old girl, it was torture. I could see it in her eyes. I gave Liv the option of staying in bed, and being a teen, I honestly expected her to stay in bed. I went for a quick shower, but when I get out all dressed, she was dressed and waiting. proud of her.
We went downstairs and grabbed our brekky pack and on the bus at 6am.
Drove out to the viewing platform where we could see the sun rise over Uluru and then the sun hit Kata Tjuta which was right next to us.
Couple of observations and a bit of a whinge if I may. It was cold (about 6 degrees) but that was not the bad thing. The bad thing was the group of early-20-something British backpackers who didn't even watch the sunrise and proceeded to yell and scream and generally make everyone's experience a misery. Well, maybe not a misery. My threshold for human behaviour has diminished over the years. Sadly, that would not be the last we saw of selfish people.
still, having said that, the sunrise was amazing over Uluru and then the Olgas.

 

[Justinf]

Back on the bus and with just 11 people onboard, the tour to follow was wonderful. Emilee, a Belgian, and Daniel, an Italian, were our guides. We stopp for some breakfast which consisted of cereal, raisin toast, fruit and Emilee was very proud of her plunger coffee. I needed it to warm up.





back on the minibus and a short drive to the start of our walk. By now the wind had picked up and the wind chill had really ripped me a new one. Was looking forward to the walk, though. A relatively easy amble through the canyon where some truly stunning views were about to emerge.
Kata Tjuta immediately struck me as more impressive than Uluru close up. More intricate in Mother Nature's design and more complex.

 

[Justinf]

I won't elaborate too much on the following pics. I will just let them do the talking. It was a magical walk. Truly magical. Liv enjoyed it and said later that Kata Tjuta, in her opinion, was "better than Uluru".

 

[Justinf]

 

[Justinf]

 

[Justinf]

 

[Justinf]

 

[Justinf]

From here, it's only a few hundred kilometres to the WA border.

With a wonderful tour almost over, we had nothing planned for the rest of the day and night but then we were told the annual Uluru Camel Cup was on that afternoon. Sort of like an Outback Melbourne Cup with camels. The racecourse was only a short free shuttle away from the resort so we decided to head back to the room to freshen up and then head out for a day at the races. As we entered the resort people were already heading out dressed like they were heading to the opera or, dare i say it, the Melbourne Cup Spring carnival. This was going to be fun, although I had no suit with me

 

[love_the_life]

From here, it's only a few hundred kilometres to the WA border.
View attachment 71973

Yep, that's the road! It is pretty good considering, though there are long stretches of corrugation. We had a 4WD with long distance tank and extra spare (which thankfully we did not need). There is an 80km speed limit.
When at Warburton a whole bunch of citroen cars came through (many old ones as well). They were part of a group drive from Cairns.

 

[UpInTheAir:)]

Wonderful photos!! Really great. So pleased you are sharing your trip with us
And I was happy to see the selfie..just because you can

 

[Justinf]

Wonderful photos!! Really great. So pleased you are sharing your trip with us
And I was happy to see the selfie..just because you can

#justinlovesaselfie

 

[JohnM]

Cracker stuff Justinf! Lots of very familiar images . It's truly an amazing part of the world .

I think I might go with Liv and say the Olgas/Kata Tjuta surpass Ayres Rock/Uluru. Something a little more magical...

 

[JohnM]

From here, it's only a few hundred kilometres to the WA border.
View attachment 71973

We lost a trailer shockie about 5 km in front of there last year on the Aus Longest Shortcut - but it didn't stop us .

 

[Justinf]

Back to the room for a quick freshen up and then out to the camel farm where the races were taking place. Free shuttle dropped us off. $10 to get in and you had to buy 'play money' to use for food and drinks. No betting on course, which was a good thing as I am a terrible punter.

they had some very decent locally brewed beer on tap. I had a few of the pale ales and at $6 for a small cup, it was pricey (yes, this is a theme throughout the whole journey if you do come here), but gee it tasty and with the temp 'warming up' to about 19 degrees, it was a nice way to spend the arvo. A very festive atmosphere. Real outback country vibe.


And they're off an racing. Ungainly, tempermental creatures that they are.

 

[Justinf]

We stayed for a couple of races and the fashions on the field.



These three were the fashions on the field judges.

After a few hours we caught the shuttle back to the room and decided to venture to the Outback Pioneer hotel for dinner. We both had the barramundi and a few schooners of lager (and a Sprite for Liv) went down a treat.


My AFL team Richmond was playing Essendon in the Dreamtime game so we got back to the room just in time for the game, but as luck would have it, the channel that was showing the footy was not working. It had been working all weekend, but not now. I'm not whether it was because there were a few storms in the area, but even my Foxtel Go app was not working. It finally started working at three quarter time. Thankfully we avoided embarrassment and won very unconvincingly.
No early start in the morning as the only thing we had planned was the Field of Light exhibition the following evening. This would give us a chance to sample to buffet brekky in the morning and generally chill and try to find something to do. Liv was very grateful for the opportunity to sleep in as the three very early mornings in a row had taken their toll. To be truthful, I was glad as well.
I drifted off to sleep after having a terrific day seeing the Olgas and the camel races and with a belly full of barra and beer. i like holidays.

 

[Justinf]

Awoke at 6.37am, a welcome 'sleep in' and while I let Liv sleep, I made a cuppa and ventured out to the balcony to watch the sunrise.




Around 9am we decided to take advantage of the free buffet breakfast. For anyone staying at Desert Gardens, the fare consists of eggs, hash browns, sauteed mushrooms, baked beans, bacon, chicken sausages, toast, cereal, a quiche type thingy, fruit, yogurt etc.

Olivia had five hash browns. Yes, that's right...five.

 

[Justinf]

A relatively lazy day browsing the few shops and sitting out on the balcony enjoying the view while Liv caught up on episodes of Teen Wolf (that was a movie when I was her age, not a series).
We had lunch at the resort and shared a club sandwich.


Our pick up time for the Field of Light tour was 5.40pm. There are two types of tour, the normal one where they take you and you walk through the lights and the one I choose that allows for drinks and canapes at a viewing spot beforehand while you watch the lights being turned on.
I'll get this out of the way now, but there was a group of people celebrating someone's 60th birthday (Australians) and they were insufferable. Loud, obnoxious, total disregard for the situation that really required silent contemplation of this wonderful sculpture. I'll stop there. I could go on and on, but they were quite disgusting.
next up, the Field of Light.

 

[Justinf]

We were greeted with drinks and canapes. Beer on offer was Rogers Beer, which is a decent drop, but again, at 3.8% it more a midstrength beer. didn't bother me as I quite like it. No soft drinks. We only had 15 or minutes of this before we were ushered down to the lights but we did see a lovely sunset, whivch I could never get sick of.

 

[Justinf]

As darkness took over the lights started to show and sheer scale of it was immense.

 

[Justinf]

Just before we ventured down the dune and immersed ourselves in the lights, all 50,000 of them, we saw a comet shoot across the sky. It was bright red and it was travelling about the same speed as a jet aircraft, but but obviously it was much further away and much quicker. It was, quite simply, amazing.
Down into the lights themselves. Wandered around them for a good 40 minutes. staggeringly beautiful and almost surreal being amongst all this natural beauty for the past few days and then being amongst manmade beauty.




We got dropped off at around 7.30pm and then it straight to the Outback Pioneer for a barra and a beer. Home tomorrow.