I flew from Sydney to Alice Springs where I was met by Rob from the Wayward Bus Company which does tours around the Red Centre of the country. Their motto is Let the Others Rush and I'd heard and read good things about them so I'd booked a four day tour over the phone from Sydney. Getting picked up at the airport saved me both money and a lot of time.
On the way down the Stuart Highway, we stopped off for lunch at the Eridunda roadhouse where we made our own sandwiches and got to know the others in the group. A few of us bought plenty of beer for the next few days. Due to the recent heavy rains and flooding, we couldn't drive via the Ernest Giles Road (past some meteorite craters) and so had to take a slightly longer route along the Lasseter Highway, turning right for the Luritja Road which would take us towards our camp site and Kings Canyon. The scenery is pretty amazing: all red earth and scrub land. Not a lot of lush greenery here. The weather wasn't that great - mostly grey cloudy skies but it wasn't raining. We reached our campsite by dusk and pitched tents for the night, then started a BBQ followed by a fair few drinks around the camp fire before hitting the sack early for an early start tomorrow.
Next morning we packed up, had breakfast and headed off to Kings Canyon where we spent half the day trekking with Rob as our guide and fountain of knowledge about the landscape and flora. We'd started our walk at eight o'clock before the sun made things too hot and the weather was perfect - hardly a cloud in the sky. The trek was pretty easy, the hardest part being the climb up to the top of the plateau along which we walked to get to the canyon itself. The colour and shape of the red sandstone formations is breathtaking. These sandstone domes were apparently formed by the action of the sea millions of years ago when the landmass of Australia was submerged. Kings Canyon itself was spectacular and the lush Garden of Eden was a great place to cool off with a dip in the pool. We finished our trek and had lunch around midday.
Next we were off to Yulara were we'd camp and use as a base for seeing Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). The distance was long enough - hundreds of kilometers - but you can drive pretty fast along a straight road when there's little traffic. We reached Yulara by late afternoon, in time to set up camp and then head off to see Uluru in the sunset. We got to the viewing area before all the other tour buses and managed to grab the prime spot to watch the changing colours of the monolith as the sun went down.
The following morning we were up again at 5am to see Uluru in the sunrise. Again we were among the first to get to the best viewing point. The rock is over 3.5km long and rises 348m above the surrounding scrub and holds significant spiritual value to the local Anangu Aboriginal people. It is believed that over two-thirds of the rock lies beneath the sand. The changing colours of the rock as the sun rose were amazing, even more so than yesterday's sunset. As soon as the sun had risen most of the other buses had cleared off, leaving us to our pancake breakfast and the view.
When we arrived at the Cultural Centre to start a walk around the base of Uluru, there were loads of other tour buses offloading people who had obviously decided to climb the rock. The local Aboriginals call them ants and I could see why. The climb is pretty steep but there's a chain to hold on to should you wish to do the climb. However, the local Aboriginal people prefer that people don't climb the rock, mostly due to the cultural significance it holds for them, but also because more than a few people die in their attempt to climb Uluru.
Personally I don't understand why tourists feel the need to climb the rock: it goes against the wishes of the locals and the views of the surrounding desert can't be that good. It's also pretty dangerous if sudden winds pick up. None of our group elected to climb the rock, instead we did the 4 hour walk around the base of the rock which takes in a few caves with Aboriginal rock paintings and many interesting features - the basis of some of the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories - on the sides of the rock.
A look around the Cultural Centre was interesting. Something you notice is that the photos of Aboriginal people who are deceased are blocked out, because of the belief that images of the deceased will haunt people.
We had lunch back at the campsite before heading off to Kata Tjuta (or The Olgas), about 30km from Uluru. In many respects this collection of smaller, more rounded rocks is more interesting than Uluru. The trek through the Valley of the Winds and the Olga Gorge was great with plenty of stunning scenery and some wildlife, mostly spiders, skinks (very small lizard-like creatures) and a few birds of prey. The walk finished in time for us to set ourselves up to view The Olgas during sunset, with some food and champagne. All in all we'd had a great day and a bit of a party that night.
The next morning was the start of the final day on the Wayward Bus for the four of us on the Red Centre trip. Most of the others were staying on the bus which was heading down south to Coober Pedy and then on to Adelaide. After brekkie we scooted off down to Erindunda where another Wayward Bus picked us up and took us back to Alice Springs by lunchtime. We were supposed to have done an off-road trip into Rainbow Valley but the gearbox on the 4WD was busted and so we were driven back to Alice on a bus. It seemed a shame to have split up from the rest of the group as we were all having a lot of fun together but, that's the way it goes: everyone has their own travel plans.
A few words about the Wayward Bus. I thought the tour of the Red Centre was great: everyone had a good time, we never seemed to be in a hurry when visiting any of the sights on the intinerary which we always seemed to arrive at first. Rob, besides being an all-round good bloke, was a first rate driver-guide and cooked a mean pancake (plenty of 'em too!), and his knowledge of what we were seeing was in-depth and informative.
I'd certainly recommend them to anyone considering a trip through Central Australia and they certainly live up to their motto. Thanks guys.