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2017-10-13 01:01
in Australia, Flying, Nflying, Ntrips, Ozsafari2017, Trips
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Next on our trip was Aluru aka Ayer's Rock, a very nice geological formation in the middle of Australia, a bit south of Alice Springs. It's actually 2 formations since it has the Olgas just a short distance from it too, and they are similarly impressive.
But we first started with the flight from Coober Pedy, up the famous Stewart's Highway that goes from Adelaide to Darwin, and we were lucky enough to see the world solar race solar cars that were driving down, and also road trains:
this guy drove off the road and just abandonned the car there
cattle ranch on the way
Eventually we got to Mt Connor, a nice formation in the middle of nowhere:
And from there it was a short enough flight to Ayers Rock and its commercial airport:
that jetstar plane nicely waited for me to land before it went
After landing and dropping out stuff at the airport, we drove directly to Ayers Rock. Sadly when we got there, the walk to the top was open, and we didn't know how rare it was and how much the rangers are trying to find reasons to keep it closed until they can meet their quota of less than 20% of people climb it, so we can close it entirely (so as to respect the native's wishes, which is all nice and good, unless you equate that to not being able to climb El Capitain, Glacier Point, or other famous landmarks, because the native americans would rather that you don't):
I only had 10mn to climb maybe a 3rd of it
got as high as this before I had to go back down to get back to the group, something I much regret now
sigh, we could have been there...
instead we drove around the rock, which was nice too, but could have been done at some later time
little birds liked to live in there
That evening, we went for a dinner with view of the rock:
the olgas
the stars were nice
they even had a telescope so that we could see saturn
After not enough sleep, we got up at 04:15, to go to field of lights. This was followed by sunrise over the rock:
We then came back to our rooms, exhausted, and took a 1h nap before breakfast, and a tour with the group to the Olgas where we did a 7.4km hike:
We then got back to "town" a bit late but made it to our camel tour:
Sadly, by then when we went back to the Rock, not only had it been closed all day for winds that weren't there anymore when we arrived, but the rangers not only couldn't be bothered to staff their booth or answer the phone for the last 4 hours, nor did they of course reopen the climb when it was safe enough to climb. As a result, we never got up, and I'm quite pissed at them:
We checked out the nearby aboriginal center and visitor center where the park staff paid by our entrance ticket, couldn't be bothered to show up for work either, and then headed back:
We then had a "cook your own dinner":
The next morning, we headed out and got some nice pictures of the rock and the olgas on the way out:
last fly by the airport before heading out
So, the place was nice, but we were very unhappy with the rangers and basically how they're artificially trying to meet their "no one wants to climb the rock anymore" by keeping it closed most of the time. Sigh... |
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