In which Roz and Layla follow in the footsteps of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

by Roz

Next morning, we were up early for our flight to Uluru (Ayers Rock).  We’d havered about whether to go there or not – by the time we got around to arranging our plans, the hotels were all booked out, and the flights expensive.  But following pressure / encouragement on Facebook, we decided to go anyway and booked a glamping-ish tour. 

Arriving at the hotel where we were due to be picked up, I must confess I looked enviously at the people headed to their nice comfy rooms.  All the more so when I found that there was a supermarket on the grounds of the hotel complex that is better stocked with options than our local Tokyo supermarket.  It was the plethora of vegetarian sausages that nearly made me weep… However, we stocked up on supplies for the trip (unnecessarily) and ate the amazingly delicious airport lunch we’d picked up in Melbourne and awaited our tour guide.  He soon turned up – a large man, brandishing the bushy beard that seems to be ubiquitous for men in these parts – and we got on board our van and met the rest of our tour group as we drove to our first stop.

Usually first stops are not that much fun.  But this one was – a hike through a place called Kata Tjuta (previously known as the Olgas), which are a group of large domed rocks.  They are huge and red, and massively remote. In some ways, it felt like the landscape had been sculpted by giants – not least when we came across a huge cliff that looked like an elephant’s head.  This took up most of the afternoon and we were only persuaded to stop lingering by our tour guide promising us a sunset view of Uluru and some sparkling wine.  Well, that and that five-year old girl on our tour who put us both to shame, overtaking us with her speedy hiking…

It was a short ride to our second stop, to see Uluru at sunset.  Usually neither Layla nor I are that mad on sunrises / sunsets, but to be fair, the sun made the rock glow magnificently (and the sparkling wine and cheese was a very pleasant addition too).  More disconcertingly, we found one of our other tour group members was from Tokyo and both of us felt simultaneously compelled to be friendly and horrified by the thought of speaking Japanese…

After the sun had set, we headed to our camp for the night.  Disappointingly this proved not to have a four-poster bed (as regular readers of this blog will remember we had in the Jordanian desert) but was nonetheless perfectly adequate.  The two of us embarrassed ourselves horribly over our excitement at the vegetarian sausages, tofu and halloumi experience which was dinner, and had a lovely time. (Side note from Layla – Roz also embarrassed herself getting lost en route home from the bathrooms in dingo country, necessitating my going to rescue her in my pyjamas).

Next morning we were up at the horrible hour of 5am, ahead of an early departure to walk around the base of Uluru for sunrise.  (Layla and I really must get more enthusiastic about sunrises, or else stop booking this kind of tour!)  The walk itself was fantastic.  6 miles-ish, flat, pretty deserted and with Uluru looking amazing in the changing morning light.  We even agreed a 5am start was worth it… (Side note from Layla – it would have looked perfectly nice an hour later.)

After we’d made it round, and rewarded ourselves with a snack, we were then taken on a smaller hike with an Aboriginal tour guide, who taught us something of the history of the area and the stories that they read in the stones.  This was differently fantastic.  After this we headed back to camp for lunch (also vegetarian heaven) before getting on the bus for a disappointingly long time to our next campsite.  However, I consoled myself by listening to a book, whilst Layla read A Town Like Alice (by Nevil Shute) which had inspired part of this trip.  And it’s always fun to see her sniveling over a story of a female town-planning pioneer.

Dinner was – you guessed it – great again.  Same cook, same enthusiasm for treating vegetarians nicely.  Hooray.  Our guide then took us out for a walk into the bush for some star gazing.  I don’t think I’ve seen stars quite like this before.  It felt as though I’d walked into a planetarium and that I was looking at a fake version of what the sky ought to look like.  I’d love to tell you that I was so inspired by how beautiful the stars were (which I was) that I decided to grab a sleeping bag and sleep on the ground so I could look at the stars properly.  But I can’t.  I’m sorry, but I just like being in a bed too much…and I’m afeard of dingos.  We then sat around the campfire and roasted marshmallows before bed at the shockingly late hour of 9pm. 

The following morning was another early start, this time to facilitate a hike round the rim of the King’s Canyon.  The start of this trail was the inauspiciously named “Heart Attack Hill”.  Fortunately none of us were much the worse by the time we had climbed it, and after that it was an amazingly beautiful walk atop the red sandstone cliffs around the perimeter of the canyon.  I find it hard to describe how lovely it was – suffice to say that it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.  The scale was amazing, the colours spectacular – and it was almost empty.  We paused by a watering hole called the Garden of Eden and ate an apple, as is only appropriate.  And we regretted that (unlike many of the other participants in the tour) neither of us remembered Priscilla Queen of the Desert well enough to emulate the iconic scenic poses by the three protagonists hiking around the canyon in drag. 

At the end of this beautiful walk, we headed back to the car park and then began the long journey back to Alice Springs.  A journey that was enhanced by seeing my first ever kangaroo, pictures of our dog Kaseki sent through by his lovely temporary family whilst we are on holiday, my audio book, and our game of Scrabble.  We rolled into Alice Springs that evening in a very cheery mood, entirely ready to enjoy the “bonza” town that we’ve both read about in the lovely book A Town Like Alice.