Uluru (day 3)

Our first reaction when we saw the below rock was "is it Uluru?". Well, it was not. This is Mount Conner.

The greatest danger when driving in the outback, is cows:

Uluru is the aboriginal name, Ayers Rock the Australian English name. It's very sacred for the Anangu people. I'm now going to quote my leaflet so you understand what this is all about:

"Anangu say that at the beginning of time the world was flat and featureless. Out of this featureless surface, very powerful ancestoral beings travelled across it, having adventures and leaving their mark on the landscape. Some ancestors travelled thousands of miles across the country and their trails link sites across the country of many different Aboriginal peoples. Others stayed in one place and brought their special effect to that area alone."

A few additional facts and figures before I let you look at the pictures:
- Uluru is made of arkose sandstone (Adrien will explain what it is, won't he?).
- It extends below the Earth for several kilometres.
- It's located 355 kilometres south west of Alice Springs.
- It's 348 metres high, 863 metres above sea-level. Its circumference: 9.4km.

You guessed it: Uluru isn't any rock.

This picture, like many others, was taken through the bus's windscreen.

Uluru truly is an amazing sight. It's giant, stands on absolutely flat land and is very very RED. Whichever way you look at it, you just can't stop staring... It's out of proportion and massive.

Our guide/driver, Nick, aka Team Tour Guide. We were about 20 people and as he found it too hard to remember everyone's names, he grouped us into national teams. For instance, Cyril, Camille and I were Team France, Meidan and Yaara were Team Israel etc... A few people earned additional nicknames. Nick, yes another Nick, from Team Germany, was called Random Steve. It's a long story. I was nicknamed National Geographic, due to the oversized camera. Finally, a section of Team Germany was also called Team Cinderella.

We stood there to watch the sunset on Uluru. Unfortunately, as the sun went down, it hid behind a thick cloud. So Uluru didn't go as red as expected. And you may ask: "but why is it all red anyway?". As the continent emerged, millions of years ago, because the rock was high in iron, it rusted and so became red. Easy peasy.

I tried to be a bit more creative on this one. The white thingummajig is a star (I was shaking).

The next morning, we got up at 3.50am (ouch) and left the campsite to go and admire the sunset over Uluru. This time, not a single cloud in sight. See the sky's colours changing as the sun goes up...

At some point I had to change the settings on my camera as there was too much light getting in...







It almost looks like sunset but it's sunrise. Funny what you can get when you change shutter speeds and aperture...














After admiring the sunset, we walked for a few hours around Uluru, thus completing the 9.4-km walk in the morning sun.
















We even discovered a whale on the rock!

Anangu people ask tourists not to climb Uluru since this is a sacred site. But you still get the odd climber who does it...

Climbing Uluru is the equivalent of climbing over the altar in a church, or running through a mosque at the time of prayer.

After walking around Uluru, we had the opportunity to ride a camel for a few minutes... Very bouncy, I say.