An early start, and a quick helping of pie from Jo, got me to the bus terminal in time to get on to the Greyhound bus bound for Uluru (Ayers Rock). At the wheel was “Buster” who is the most entertaining and informative bus driver I have ever been driven by. He could have made a living as a comedian. Or as a geography teacher. He enthused about the vegetation, the spinifex grass, the hardy trees, and all the wonderfully deadly poisonous things.
Buster said that there were a few areas with highly unusual vegetation, including an actual rubber tree that was coming up in a few km. He got us all excited about seeing this rubber tree, and when we got to it it turned out to be a regular acacia tree with a couple of old tyres hanging from the branches. We all groaned enthusiastically and waited for Buster’s next witticism, which we knew wouldn’t be long in coming…
Buster told us there would be a prize for the first person to spot the Uluru in the distance. Of course Buster knew that Uluru is not the only monolith in the area and he was trying to get us to erroneously declare that an earlier and similar sized peak (Mt Connor) was the one. But by this time we knew Buster, and weren’t so easily fooled – nobody fell for it. So when an hour later, actual Uluru was sighted, we claimed the prize, only to be told that the offer had expired half an hour before!
Eventually we rolled into Yulara – in what is called Australia’s “Red Centre”. On seeing prices for things in Yulara I dubbed this as the “Red Ripoff Centre”, but I’m only here for one night. I met Jo again, who had joined 2 other British girls, Jane and Alice. After we’d had some expensive food we all got the bus to the “Olgas” which are a series of curious and scenic monoliths divided by ravines, about 25 km west of Uluru.
After hiking around the Olgas for half an hour, the bus took us back towards the Sunset Strip for the classic view of Uluru itself.
I remember clearly that when I was at St Mildred’s Infants’ School in Broadstairs (aged 5) my teacher told us that she had spent time in Australia. She taught us all to sing “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree”, and had us all make and decorate cardboard boomerangs. She also showed us a photo of “Ayers Rock”. She explained that it could look red, or pink or orange, or even blue, depending on the light. I remember being utterly amazed by this, and found it impossible to believe that such a thing could exist.
And yet… as the bus headed eastwards, a cloud cast a shadow on Uluru and it suddenly turned from pink to a purplish blue… We parked at the Sunset Strip just as the cloud moved, and the huge monolith turned from blue to a fiery orange in the setting sun. A few minutes later it had transformed to a dark pink, which imperceptibly flowed into purple as the sun dipped behind the Olgas to the west….
Finally the show was over and we headed back to Yulara where Jo and I were able to buy the makings of a meal in a small grocery shop and headed back to the hostel, to eat it in the company of Helen (a different Helen from Magnetic Island). Tomorrow we will all get to climb to the top of Uluru…