Hey which way?

Uluru. Ayer's Rock. One in the same. It's the picture that you will undoubtedly see when you go to Outback Steakhouse. But, unlike Outback Steakhouse, it is actually really incredible. (Side note- I have yet to come across the elusive "bloomin' onion". Apparently, they are not found much in the wild these days).

Back to the story. So as you come to Uluru National Park (or whatever it's called, can't quite remember but Uluru is in it), you will see many signs discouraging climbing Uluru. It is a sacred Aboriginal site. At first, I thought I wouldn't climb it because it would be disrespectful, but once I got pretty close to it, I discovered that not only was there a chain to aid in the climbing, but instructions on the best way to climb (drink a litre of water an hour, wear rubber-soled shoes, sunscreen, hat, blah blah blah). Furthermore, there is talk of closing the climb down because one bad exotic apple had to do a strip tease on the top of it (also, 35 people have died climbing it). So, I went for it.

Hannah ran into a little bit of trouble wearing UGG boots and a mini skirt, and turned around nearly half way up. Unbeknownst to her or the rest of us, this was actually the hardest part. The second half is not nearly as steep. Terry, being such a nice guy, walked her all the way down and then went all the way back up again...in slippers.

This is a German cool cat that I saw sprinting past me on the way up in his button down, sweater vest, skinny jeans, and, of course, wayfarers.

The hike took us about 2 hours, and we all made it alive, except for the group water bottle which I dropped in the first 20 minutes. God rest its soul.

Driving to the Kata tjutas, or the Olgas, we came across some camels. I was pretty excited about this. You american readers out there may not know this (I didn't), but there are actually more camels in Australia than there are in Arab countries. In fact, Australia exports live camels to Saudi Arabia. Ha!

We took a quick look at the Olgas and moved on because we were pretty whipped from climbing Uluru. We camped just south of Alice Springs, hoping to get work as carnies at the Alice Springs Carnival. Unfortunately, there was not enough work so the next day Tannah and Milly (Terry and Hannah and Mitch and Kelly, collectively), had to part ways. :(

Mitch and I stopped at Daly Waters for the "famous burgers" that Lonely Planet talked about. This is when I began to start wondering if Lonely Planet writers actually went to the places they wrote about. Here is a picture of a lorikeet at Daly Waters.

When we got to Pine Creek, an old gold mining town, we had some Coopers at the hotel-motel (which lonely planet hardly mentioned), and then checked out the lonely planet favorite- an overpriced flashy backpackers which lacked any tap beer. gross. We tried camping at the Roadhouse, but there was absolutely no wind and the mosquitoes kept buzzing in our ears so we couldn't sleep a wink. We packed up at 2 am and decided to drive straight through to Jabiru.