***
Here are more pictures MR took that captured a side of the day I didn't manage to:
Flight to Alice Springs
Our rental car
'Jim's Place' - Stuarts Well Roadhouse
Emu at Stuarts Well Roadhouse
Our gritty license plate
Watermelons in scrub
Desolate wilderness: 'You see that tree over there? Run over there and touch it!'
"Fasten Your Seat Belt" in 4 languages
Sign warning us that there're speed cameras in the bushes
A 5 minute commentary from me to kill time and entertain ourselves:
"If you think it is very sian to drive 5 hours from Alice Springs Airport to Uluru, there are worse fates out there. For example just now at the counter at the deli, there was this Malaysian Girl who was on Working Holiday. So imagine she has to be here for at least one month. And you don't even have handphone reception. How sad is that? So sad...
When you're on Working Holiday you do low-paid, boring jobs that the locals don't want to do.
So there was the aborigine family that was trying to start their car just now... I don't think they managed to get the car started did they?... Good for them...
Wait I think that was the [aborigine] family from just now... You just saw the family from just now. I was going to u-turn but then there's another group which I hope will give attention. Us being stupid Asian tourists we don't know what to do... and it looks like - yes, he has attention. I feel less guilty now. Wait, no, the vehicle just disappeared over the horizon.
Err, should we go back?... I don't know what we can do... Okay nevermind. This is a very trafficked road so hopefully someone will come and help them...
Hopefully our car won't break down... In Hertz we trust"
Footprints in the sand
Ayer's Rock
Watching Ayer's Rock sunset
Various starry sky shots - some by me, some by MR
The nice white cloud you see could be another galaxy, but that seems improbable
Oddly though I rested the camera on the ground, the shots with 10s and up of exposure were blur - microtremors (I stopped scurrying away before the shutter flicked, so it wasn't me)? I thought it might be twinkling stars but the streaks were not characteristic of twinkling.