Day 115 : Ants in my pants

High Point: A cheeky beer in the Uluru Fire Station

Low Point: Ants in my pants

Quote of the day:  “Paul, do you know where our window is?”

We woke up in the middle of nowhere.  You might think this a bit of an exaggeration but we were roughly 500km from the nearest bit of civilisation.  Civilisation in this case was the Docker River community with a population in the low teens.  We had just spent the night camping on a dried up river bed.  It was us, Martha and what seemed like a billion busy little biting ants.  Todays plan: head into the Uluru Nation park and explore the big rock.

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As we were driving through the outback, all of a sudden, out of nowhere popped up the impressive Uluru, Ayers Rock as it was formerly known.  From a distance it seemed unreal.  Almost as if someone had drawn it into the horizon.  This prompted the crew to explore some more creative theories on how the rock came about.  We all know the scientific explanation of rock formations over millions of years, but that’s not fooling us.  I will now present the evidence (your honour…)

As keen followers you would have seen us visit the Super Pit recently, which is the same width and length as Uluru.  The Super Pit is currently 450 metres deep.  Any guesses on how high Uluru is?  That’s right, 450 metres.  Is it possible that the Australian government came up with a scheme to create jobs and increase tourism?  Dig a massive hole, create a cover and say it’s a gold mine, then dump the rock in the middle of nowhere and tell the foreigners its a natural occurrence?  Why aren’t people allowed to climb the rock any more?? Maybe its a sacred ground, or maybe they just haven’t finished the top bit and don’t want you to see the scaffolding!  Why are parts of the rock hollow? Maybe its a natural fault in the rock, or maybe its shoddy craftsmanship!  To avoid any law suits, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions…

By the time we rolled into Yulara (the tourist resort next to Uluru) it was already getting dark and the town was starting to look a bit shifty.  We all had zero interest in camping again and were in dire need of a shower and a bed.  Queue Jim, the Chief of Yulara Fire Station.  Jim is one of the two full time firemen looking after the resort and the surrounding area.  Uluru is staffed by two full time firemen, which is typical for the whole of the Northern Territory.  NT has under 150 full time fire fighters to look after an area of 36,000 km²!  After a few minutes of explaining the trip (and a couple of gentle hints) we were being offered the Visiting Officer Quarters.  BOOM!  Shower, bed, kitchen, did I mention the shower?  We ended up spending the rest of the night enjoying the hospitality and eating cheesy garlic bread in the rec room.  I’m very sad and ashamed to report that I lost at pool that night.  I can only put it down to exhaustion.  It sure wasn’t Paul or Steve’s pool skills!

Fuad

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