Uluru Sunrise
Morning came very early as we had a bus ride to Ulura-Kata Tjuta National Park where we would be greeted by sunrise reflecting off the famous Ayers Rock, or Uluru, as it is called by the First Nations people. The colors were beautiful although we wished we had arrived before daybreak so we could have seen even more of the color as the sun rose. We strolled along the paths for awhile sipping our hot cocoa and snacking on the breakfast foods the tour had provided.
Kata Tjuta
We boarded the bus again, and our driver and guide gave us more information about the park on our way to Kata Tjuta, a series of rock mounds. We hiked from the bus up a steady incline towards the crevice in the rocks, taking in the red colors and striations of the rock formation and a surprising amount of greenery for a desert environment.
Lunch and Astro Tour
The bus took us around the park and then back to our hotel, where we had lunch at the hotel restaurant. The food was good, and not overly expensive for hotel food. We walked over to one of the other hotels to get a drink at the "Outback Bar", which our bus driver had toured, but it was a small outdoor bar serving mostly beer. We didn't understand why he recommended it. We went back to our hotel and to the restaurant where we had lunch to have a cocktail. We had the afternoon to ourselves, so we spent a good portion of it on the patio outside our hotel room, viewing the scenery, listening to the sounds of construction nearby, and taking a nap.
In the evening, we had an Astro Tour booked so we first scheduled a dinner at the buffet at Sails in the Desert, supposedly the more luxury hotel in the resort. Again, the lobby area was upscale but the resort looked like a Ramada. There was confusion finding the restaurant entrance (which we saw elsewhere as well as signage was poor). But the buffet was very good with local foods and good desserts. Leaving was another exercise as we had to point to the table we were seated at to get the cashier to check us out. We took the internal bus back to our hotel, which was a mistake as it had to drive all around the resort, including to employee residences.
We started to walk to Town Center for our tour and saw the bus coming towards the stop after our hotel so we waited. The driver pulled up, stopped and then drove off without opening the doors. So we cursed him out and walked the rest of the way to Town Center. We were told to wait by the central fountain, but there was no fountain, so we gathered in the main square for a guide. He showed up a little late, but his tour was worth the wait as he took us out to an open field and used his laser pointer to point out the Southern Cross and constellations (which are all upside-down in the Southern Hemisphere). Then he let us all see through a pair of telescopes he had set up, and we viewed Mars and a small star cluster.
