The Red Center

I've always had a bucket list of things I'd like to do before I leave Australia.  One of those things is visiting Uluru or better known as "The Rock".  My friend DM is also moving back to the US in May and he also had this trip on his bucket list...so, we decided to do a quick weekend.  Everyone I know that's visited Uluru have said that you don't need more than two days there - so we decided to do the trip in a long weekend.

We got to Uluru at around noon on Saturday and drove directly to the resort.  There is only one resort in Uluru so there aren't alot of choices.  It is literally in the middle of nowhere.

There wasn't much to do at the resort so we headed out to the rock.  When it came right down to it, we were not prepared.  None of us had sunscreen. I was wearing flip flops.  And we had no water.  Completely unprepared.

It was worth it though.  The Rock is beautiful and much bigger than you'd expect.  But, I'd like to confirm, you really don't need more than a day in Uluru.  We went out to the Helga's and hiked around a bit.  Then we drove to The Rock and hiked just a little bit and drove around the entire thing in about an hour.  We choose not to climb to the top b/c it's not respectful to the natives.

The Helga's - There was way more vegetation than I expected.

Hiking the Helga's

What I imagine Mars to look like

Always alot of love between HA and DM

What the boys did while I took pictures

Sunset

We ended up having dinner at the resort and having a few beers but there wasn't much else to do so we were in bed fairly early.  The next day, we decided we didn't need to see the rock at sun rise so we started our road trip to Alice Springs.  It was quite a long drive.

Came across this tire tree on the way to Alice Springs

We failed to realize that we weren't getting to Alice Springs until late afternoon on a Sunday.  This meant that nothing was open.  So, we made the best of it and found a pub and drank beer all afternoon and then had dinner at a pub.  I don't really have anything to post about Alice.  I wouldn't suggest visiting.