Yulara/Uluru aka the centre of the sun!

After what was an extreamly hot and sweaty night in Coober Pedy we came to the conclusion that we couldn't possibly spend the two nights we'd planned to be at Uluru staying in the van so we chose to book a hotel room instead. Thank goodness we did!! I can only describe the heat up there as being something similar to what I would imagine the centre of the sun feels like! Ok maybe a slight exageration but it was bloody hot and I couldn't have been more gratetful to get into our lovely air conditioned room.

The thing at Uluru is that Yulara is the only place you can stay which is close to the rock itself. Basically if you don't want to drive for hours each time to get into the park then you have to come to this resort. Therefore prices are pretty high and all accomodation from the top hotel to the campground is owned by the same company so no real price wars to get your business. We had a quick check on trip advisor for reviews of the accomodation available and I have to say we were a little concerned as all hotels seemed to be getting bad reviews. It was either stay at what could be a dodgy hotel or swealter in the heat of the van, the hotel had to win even if it could have been Fawlty Towers! We managed to get a knock down price at The Lost Camel and just went for it. To be honest I wouldn't have cared if it didn't have a bed as long as it had air conditioning. When we finally did arrive we were actually very pleasently suprised. Our room was a good size with nice fixtures and fittings, flat screen tv and it's own fridge. The only slight issue was the MASSIVE bug which had chosen to room with us! Oh my goodness, the bugs and flies! They are everywhere, all sizes, all varieties and they don't mind where they land on your body, mainly settling for on or around your head. Therefore a couple of very sexy fly nets had to be purchased just to get from the car to hotel room.

Uluru take one...

So we headed off for the national park ready to watch the sun set and see the amazing rock up close. With temperatures still in the 30's at 7pm and the flies still fully active it was proving to be quite a test just waiting for the sun to go down and get all the pictures we needed. Please note that the pics of us without our fly nets on took great personal effort as I hate flys and freak out if they go near my face!! Still the colours and atmosephere of the place is truley worth the sacrifice.

Uluru take two....

The alarm was to be set for 5:15am in order to get up to the rock for sunrise but the experience of a soft comfy bed and a fully air conditioned room meant sleeping was a pure joy and we slightly overslept, whoops! Still, we managed to get into the park just as the sun was coming up but by the time we reached the designated sunrise spot we had sadly missed the main part of the show and hence why there are no great photos (something which Mark was extremely annoyed about!)

Slightly later in the morning, after trying unsuccessfully to get a decent breakfast, we made the somewhat delude decision to go on the Valley of the Winds walk around the Olgas which is the other rock formation within the park. After around 10 minutes of walking in the burning heat and with a second layer of skin made up of flies we realised our mistake and retreated to the saftey and coolness of Betsey to drive back and chill out at our hotel in the lovely pool.

Uluru take three....

Back for another sunset and some more fab photos..