In Uluru we stayed at the Emu Ridge Apartments part of the only resort in the area. Due to this they can charge whatever they want for the rooms and also the meals. There is nowhere else to go! Prices started at about $300.00 a night and main courses at $45.00 (a la carte). Even the one campground (on the resort) charged $50.00 per person and this is without any hookups or amenities. We found the resort (at least our apartment) to be quite run down (e.g. our curtains were so faded they had changed colors) yet with the price of the meals – we were so grateful to have a full kitchen. All of this so we could come see a big rock : )

In the village we saw some aboriginal dancing and in the grocery store we found kangaroo steaks. So we prepared them for dinner and discovered we really like this wild game. We also saw a brilliant sunset of pinks, purples and yellows before the sun faded into the night.

The next day we thought we could walk to Ayers Rock or at least take a hotel shuttle to get there. Turned out it was 32 kilometers, it just looked a lot closer. The front desk staff told us it would cost $75.00 EACH WAY for us to take the shuttle so we ended up renting a car (at about $130.00 and we had more flexibility). This area is definitely a racket!

We finally drove out to Ayers Rock (Uluru is the aboriginal name) to walk around its base (about 6 miles around). Fortunately we found this experience to be worth all of it, the flights and the resort expenses. We felt an energy surge upon approaching it and it seemed sacred like we were entering a temple and needed to bow and pray (at least this is how Suzan describes it). It was a place where we preferred to be in silence and each view as we circled it had a different look. Ayers Rock is the world’s largest monolithic rock and from afar it just seems like one big rock yet getting close to it – it is a marvel. It even changes colors throughout the day and evening.

There were many areas along Ayers Rock where it is forbidden to take photographs. The Aboriginal people have “stories”, customs, and rituals which they depend upon for the survival of their ancestors’ teachings. Their rituals continue (both the men and the women have areas on the rock where these take place thus they are considered sacred so cannot be filmed). There seemed to be more areas where the men hung out – talk about “man caves.”

What an experience to be with this powerful energy stream (even more so than our experience in Sedona, Arizona where there is allegedly a vortex where one can feel energy surges). Ayers Rock has been a notable part of the Aboriginal history (for at least about 20,000 years) and now they’re discovering older civilizations which may date back closer to 70,000 years.

An interesting “story” we heard included that punishment back in the day included hitting people on the head until they bled. Then others would help them to stop the bleeding. This literally contributed to their skulls being 2 centimeters thicker than the average human’s skull today. For more severe retribution men were shot in their thighs with spears. Whenever someone had scars in this area they were scorned.

Our final morning Jim bounded out of bed at 6:00 am to drive out to see the sunrise (and, of course, film it). Suzan stayed in bed. Even though the cloud coverage did not lend much support to Jim’s photography, we both enjoyed some alone time!

At the airport counter they were actually weighing carry-ons and everyone was only allowed 7 kilograms each.  This was the first time we encountered this during our entire trip. We each had backpacks plus bags with gifts we’ve been accumulating. Jim’s backpack alone weighed about 11 kilograms with all of the camera gear. Jim somehow chatted up the agent and distracted her enough that we weighed our gift bags, which were fine, and she didn’t seem to realize we had the backpacks on. We then carefully backed away from the counter before she would notice. Whew. A close one.