August 12, 2012
August 12, 2012
There are two sections to the National Park at Ayers Rock. The second is the Olgas, or now Kata Tjuta. The Olgas is another red mountain that sits about twenty miles away. Aimee is feeling a lot better today so we rise early and drive there. We arrive too late for sunrise, but it doesn’t seem the sunrise parking lot was such a good photography spot anyway.
Instead of a single peak, the Olgas have eroded into a tight grouping of red domes. We start our visit hiking the Valley of the Winds. The path takes us up several of the shoulders between the domes. We don’t finish the circular trail; instead turning around after reaching the second overlook. The hike is nice but both monoliths lose their impact when you have spent any amount of time among the more impressive red rocks of the Colorado plateau. The appeal of these Australian monoliths is their dramatic upsurge out of an otherwise utterly flat terrain.
After lunch, we return to Uluru for the six-mile base walk. Aimee is thinking that is too much exertion so she soaks up the sun and waits. Ayers is pretty much a smooth solid monolith but up close you can see quite a few places that look like Swiss cheese. I also see why the Aborigines thought it was sacred. There are water holes at two spots along the base, a miracle in the desert. Several niches around the base also contain wall art.
My fourth reason for not coming to Australia is the cost. It is a major expense to fly to this continent and then on to the scattered tourist sites. Unfortunately the pain doesn’t stop when you get here. Australia is a rich country and their citizens are well paid. Their minimum wage is double our own so everything here is twice the price in the US. And getting worse as the US Federal government prints money like there is no tomorrow.
If Australia is pricey, Ayers Rock is exorbitant. Everything here is trucked in at great expense. You have to want to see this rock to come here. To avoid the overpriced tours that ferry you twelve miles to Uluru and back, we rented a car. This also gave us some much-desired flexibility.
Instead of a single peak, the Olgas have eroded into a tight grouping of red domes. We start our visit hiking the Valley of the Winds. The path takes us up several of the shoulders between the domes. We don’t finish the circular trail; instead turning around after reaching the second overlook. The hike is nice but both monoliths lose their impact when you have spent any amount of time among the more impressive red rocks of the Colorado plateau. The appeal of these Australian monoliths is their dramatic upsurge out of an otherwise utterly flat terrain.
My fourth reason for not coming to Australia is the cost. It is a major expense to fly to this continent and then on to the scattered tourist sites. Unfortunately the pain doesn’t stop when you get here. Australia is a rich country and their citizens are well paid. Their minimum wage is double our own so everything here is twice the price in the US. And getting worse as the US Federal government prints money like there is no tomorrow.
If Australia is pricey, Ayers Rock is exorbitant. Everything here is trucked in at great expense. You have to want to see this rock to come here. To avoid the overpriced tours that ferry you twelve miles to Uluru and back, we rented a car. This also gave us some much-desired flexibility.
posted by Mike and Aimee at 9:06 AM
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