Day 30 Land Tour Day 6 Uluru Sunrise, Cultural Tour

Another early morning. We're meeting at 5:45 to go see the sunrise over Uluru before breakfast.




Some of our group is departing early, so they did the group picture now.


Then off to a cultural tour. We drove around Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock and stopped at various points. Australia is trying to move more towards using native, aboriginal names for many of its cultural sites, instead of westernized names. This place is really out in the middle of nowhere. Many believe Uluru is fairly close to Alice Springs, but it is over 200 miles away. They get enough tourists here to have their own airport, but there's just a few hotels, a campground, a couple of restaurants, a gift shop (of course), and a single grocery store.





Greener trees and shrubs that signifies water nearby. Further down the path, maybe .25 miles, there is a water hole, where rainwater runs off the rock in a waterfall, filling a small basin at the base of the rock.



This is all the water in the water hole. Sometimes the native kids come to swim. Non-natives are prohibited from swimming and can get assessed hefty fines, up to $5000 AU, if caught doing so. We heard some stories from the culture. Then went to the cultural center. It was not a professional, polished presentation. Not great. Paul got to pretend to be a wounded emu.



We learned that boomerangs in this part of Australia are not used for killing prey. They are used mostly for wounding and disabling prey. If they animal is killed, it would need to be consumed right away, otherwise it will start to go bad. If they simply wound it, the meat can stay fresh until they are ready to actually kill and consume it. Since there is no refrigeration here in the outback, this is much more efficient and a better use of the limited resources available.



We came back to our hotel for lunch. Our last official event for this trip is sunset over Uluru. It was very cloudy. The sun poked thru briefly for a picture but we did not get to see the changing colors. They have us cheese and crackers with champagne and orange juice

Tomorrow we're start our return journey home.

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