Hi all

So, we arrived in the Ayers Rock Resort and quickly booked in. Once again we’d managed to bring the weather with us (this time for 500 odd km - by God we’re good Rainmakers) which kind of scuppered our plans to go watch the sunset. So we headed to a bar and made a nuisance of ourselves while we watched England’s openers struggle to open in their second innings. To be fair they’d have trouble opening a can of beans with a ring pull. A few beers later and we were getting a little drunk (so much so that I started drunkenly boasting to the old guy who ran the place that the worm was well and truly turning and that we’d win the Ashes 3 - 1 with this one being drawn. Drunken confidence has a lot going for it) and decided to have some dinner in the bar’s guests’ kitchen. And we weren’t even staying there. We’re crazy I tell you :o) While we were eating however something even crazier happened. The clouds lifted and the sun came blazing out. Like a smile through a hangover. Woo hoo. We necked our food and beers and jumped in Priscilla and after a slight accident (I reversed up a huge traffic island and had us feeling like d*** Dastardly and Muttley from Wacky Races as we see-sawed crazily for a second or two as the wheels tried desperately to gain friction out of thin air - my first crash on foreign soil. Get in) we were off and headed to Uluru for the sunset. We got two thirds of the way there and then bumped into all the traffic coming back. The sunset had been wonderful by all accounts. Grrrrrr. Not to worry though, as the cloud has lifted at least we’ll get the ‘tour’ of the night sky. We were really looking forward to this. They take you to an observatory and as you gaze up into the wondrous blackness of forever whilst they tell you the myths behind the stars. That is both the Greek myths and the Aboriginal myths. How f***in cool does that sound? Well, we’ll never know cos it was still cancelled when we phoned to check. Feeling a bit deflated we went to bed and set the alarm for 4.15 a.m. And when it went off we promptly turned over and went back to sleep. Oops.

When we finally surfaced and had fed and watered we decided that we’d stay an extra night and get up and go see the sunrise the following day. No drama (woo hoo, Aussie speak). And off we set to do the base walk around Uluru. This was something else I’d really been looking forward to, getting up close and personal with the monstrous piece of rock. Our first proper sighting of Uluru left us both speechless. I say our first proper one, because we stopped and gawked and photographised what we thought was Ayer’s Rock a few kms out of town. It wasn’t. But when we met up with Kimbers and Andy a few weeks later, it turned out they’d done exactly the same thing. Sweet. So then, the real Uluru. What can I say that hasn’t been said before? It’s f***in huge. It’s f***in red. And it’s f***in awe inspiring. Seriously, I never honestly thought I’d be that moved by it. But it was truly awesome. We had a quick mooch around the cultural centre and learnt some of the Aboriginal beliefs about it. Spirit beings fighting and leaving their marks behind - notably some huge round holes in the side where Liru, who was a giant lizard being, and a bunch of his mates attacked someone else (hey, I remembered Liru’s name didn’t I?) killing them. The holes are said to be where the giant spears missed their intended targets and embedded in the rock. The other being’s mother then arrived and poisoned Liru with some sort of cloud, meaning that the bushes around the area can’t be eaten. I reckon it was aliens myself, and some kind of radiation. But maybe that’s just me.

But think about it. If it was aliens and we on Earth were actually cross bred with other animals to save a dying race, that’d explain why so many people look like animals. Helena Bonham Carter looks like a mouse, Harry Redknapp looks like a bloodhound and of course at the top of the game (or tree - boom boom) are those of us who are said to resemble monkeys. Hey, it works for me...

Where was I? Oh yes, we headed out to do the basewalk itself. I strapped on the seventeen gallons of water we’d decided to take with us (just in case we got lost and had to spend a week in the wilderness) and pretty soon I was sweating like Stuy at the thought of Everton winning the league and staggering like Chris on Christmas Eve. This was exacerbated by Mand stopping every twenty paces or so (a stone in her sandal, get the camera, get a bag of crisps, change her water bottle, put the camera back - the list is endless and I was beginning to think the walk would be as well). But after about three quarters of an hour a rather unexpected saviour appeared. Well it didn’t actually appear thank God, but Mand suddenly needed the toilet. Chocolate not lemonade. Really badly. But the thing is, as we soon discovered much to Mand’s disgust, there is only one toilet on the whole of the six mile basewalk. And it was right back at the beginning. Suddenly Mand’s pace quickened with a vengeance. We scuttled round the rest of the walk with me trailing in her dust cloud, stopping every now and then to take photos. I tried to lift her spirits with a little lighthearted banter (ME: ‘This takes the piss’ MAND: ‘That’s the whole point, no it doesn’t’ ME: (laughing) ‘No s***!’) but curiously this only made her crosser. Women eh? Who can read ‘em.

But even under these pressures we were both still struck by the absolute awesomeness of the thing. I know I keep using that word, but there’s no other one to really fit. Along the way, there are cave paintings dating from thousands of years ago (to be fair though they could’ve been drawn the day before - they’re exactly the same as the ones on sale in the galleries) and some of the most stunning rock formations (waves, caves, ripples, holes, different couloured layers of rock, knobbly, craggy, smooth - from one angle it looks just like a huge sand dune) as well as a couple of beautiful, still, reflective waterholes. Simply stunning in it’s ever-changingness (yes, another new word) but also in another way it was soothing in it’s continuity. The lines, the shape, the shadows. It’s an absolute work of art. Sculpted by nature. It’s impossible not to sound pretentious and cliched about the f***ing thing to be honest. But it’s got to be seen to be believed. I think I’ll leave it at that...Ok, one more word. Awesome :o) After what felt like an eternity (but at the same time not nearly long enough) we made it back to the start and Mand went off to find relief. It was then we realised that we’d done the walk in a little over an hour and a half. I reckon that’s got to be a record.

One thing I just don’t understand was that there were people there climbing the rock. This is something that the Aboriginal owners continually ask you not to do. There are signs everywhere. The path to the top is the one Aboriginal elders have been using for thousands of years to go up and conduct ceremonies. Not even uninitiated Aboriginal men are allowed to do it. And for Aboriginal women it’s a definite no no. But that doesn’t stop groups of tourists clambering all over it. It’s been likened to climbing all over the altar in the Sistine Chapel. Personally I’d liken it to going to visit someone’s house and s***ting all over their dead Grandmother’s picture. It’s just outrageous and shows about as little respect as it’s possible to express. But people still do it. I wanted to ask the people who were doing it why they’d done it, but they were half way up when we got there. The thing is, there’s a sign on the National Park entrance advertising when the climb is open, and coach tours go there specifically for it. I wonder what’s going to happen when the Australian Government’s ‘lease’ runs out after the ninety nine years is up. I hope the Aboriginals tell everyone to f*** off and not climb it. Let’s hope so. Or maybe let people carry on, but lay a few bear traps on the way.

Anyhoo, with the walk completed in record time we headed up to Sunset Lookout to watch the sunset. We were about three hours early and sat back to have a few beers and some dinner before the sunset actually started. While we ate and drank we decided we’d listen to some local radio. This was by far the most surreal thing to happen in our whole time in Australia so far. Local radio (around Ayer’s Rock at least) appears to be just the soundtrack from a tv station. Seriously. So, the adverts were tv adverts ‘just look at these prices’ one demented old fart bellowed at us. What? What prices? Mand, I think I’ve had an embolism. And the programmes were tv programmes. It’s absolute quality. We listened to an entire episode of MASH which is something I’ve never done before and, to be honest, I never intend to do again. I loved this programme when I was a kid (the re-runs, I’m not that old) and I loved it. On the radio it just kind of loses something. Like the pictures. And the scenes with Klinger definitely lose their punch. That didn’t actually stop me laughing out loud though to be fair. And for a while it was like calling in on old friends, albeit with a blindfold on. Cool.

And then something even more surreal (and a lot more exciting) came on. The news. And the headline was this. SPORTSCASTER: ‘And he’s got him, this is truly amazing’ followed by the announcer ‘something totally unexpected happens at the Test’. OH MY f***IN GOD. WE BEAT ‘EM. I shouted, punching the air. But obviously there were no pictures to go along with the sound. Uh oh. I should’ve known better. Somehow, England had capitulated and lost the unloseable Test. I swear to God I nearly cried. I sat back in desultory silence and waited for the sunset to fill my soul with love and to let me know that on the scale of things, it didn’t matter.

And that’s kind of what happened. I’d like to say that’s exactly what happened, but it wasn’t. Not quite. We didn’t get the full gamut of colours you see on all the postcards (from the people we’ve spoken to it seems not many people do) but it was still impressive watching the rock itself darken through hundreds of different shades of red. The reason for it being slightly duller than we would’ve liked was due to there being a shedload of cloud cover that the sun just couldn’t break through. But I have to say it was still fookin ace, man (said in my best Manc voice). And best of all there was still tomorrow’s sunrise to look forward to. Studiously avoiding the bar where we’d watched the cricket the day before, which was now resplendent with loud, drunken Aussies we headed off to bed.

This time we did manage to rouse ourselves when the alarm clock went off and headed out for the final chapter in our Uluru adventure. Sunrise. I was suffering from a cricket hangover (never had one before - I was convinced everybody knew I was English and were sniggering and pointing behind my back) and when we got to the Park entrance we had to queue for twenty minutes to get in. This is because the French people in the car at the front of the queue couldn’t understand that all they had to do was write their names on the tickets to validate them and that the tickets were valid for three days. It ain’t f***in rocket science now is it! There was a guy behind us on a push bike who I could tell was just beginning to understand he had as much chance of getting there in time as we had of getting a recount and actually winning the Second Test. I’d like to say we offered him a lift. We didn’t. In fact, as we roared off in a cloud of dust leaving him to tread his way the six miles or so to Sunset point, I just imagined he was Shane Warne. Unsurprisingly I started to feel a little better.

The sunset was really pretty. Not quite beautiful, but not far off. A bit like Natalie Imbruglia against Cameron Diaz. Or a Brazilian wax on a granny. Again the main reason it fell a little short was the cloudiness of the sky. But it was still pretty awesome (there’s that word again) as the shadows sharpened and changed shape and the rock started to glow and then brighten as the day came in. The best trick I found of really appreciating it is to look at it for a few seconds then close your eyes for a few and when you open them again the change is so apparent that for a second or two you feel like you’re looking at it for the first time. Top drawer. As we left, with the sun well and truly up, about half a mile down the road we passed our friend on his push bike still heading in. By now I was feeling inspired by the new day and I gave him a grin and a thumbs up. Keep on truckin old son. He even managed a feeble smile in return. Bless him.

Next stop was Coober Pedy where we’re going to make a fortune by noodling through the mollock for opals, and have our photos taken with the bus out of Mad Max and to see a house decorated with women’s underwear. Sounds like my kind of town.

Laters all

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx