We found a spot just in time to see the sun peeking out and took some photographs before driving round to the Waterhole Walk to the south of Uluru.  It was a short, pleasant and relatively shady walk – already the temperatures were soaring.  The Mala walk was also enjoyable and gave a chance to see an ‘unweathered’ chunk of rock, revealing the true grey colour.

Returning to the hotel, we checked out and drove back to the airport and returned the car.  We had noticed that one of the front grills was missing and had no idea if it was before or after we got hold of it.  We were relieved that the Hertz desk didn’t ask.

It was only a small plane on the trip to Perth – we were pleasantly surprised to receive a beef stew, potatoes, vegetables, a bread roll and a Mars bar, oh and pretzels for a snack.  All very nice.

We arrived in perth at 2:30pm and managed to hop on the AUS$6 public bus instead of the AUS$24 on the shared shuttle bus.  It took around 45 minutes to reach the centre of town and were perfectly placed to pick up our car from Hertz.  Because we had picked the car up from town instead of the airport, we saved around AUS$100 on the rental – and the even better news was that we could return it to the airport without charge.  Bonus!  The car was an almost new white Toyota Corolla with around 10,000km on the clock.  

We drove over to 12:01 East backpackers hostel, only to find that parking on the street was limited to 2 hours maximum, and paid tickets up until 5pm.  The obnoxious German youth manning the text was good enough to laugh when it was suggested this should be on the Hostelworld web site instead of ‘on street parking’ – “It is the same in all cities”, well thanks, but that isn’t true and how are we supposed to know Perth?

Still, it worked out well as we drove of to a huge shopping centre called Garden City where we bought just about everything for our camping adventure.  We spend AUS$177 which got us a tent, bedding, stove, chairs, inflatable mattress and pump, plates, cutlery, bucket, cleaning equipment, a knife… fantastic value!  It was great fun and when we were done we headed down to the food court which had a great selection of world cuisines (although Laura went for the Kentucky variety).

We then returned to the hostel, and once checked in we found it to be by far the worst we have encountered – unclean, poor staff, poor shower facilities with no private areas to get dried in.  Basic and grubby, and not particularly cheap.  They also insisted that we pay $20 deposit for the two keys – we didn’t have the cash and although we only wanted one key and the German fellow would have none of it.

We then told him we would be leaving before the desk opened in the morning, at which point no deposit was needed!

Anyway, we took a shower and went to bed.

Due to rescheduling our flights to Uluru and Western Australia beyond, we found ourselves on the red eye from Brisbane to Sydney and waking at 2:40am for a AUD$60 taxi fare to the airport. Our connection in Sydney to the Uluru flight was very short, so we were a little concerned when the flight was delayed for 20 minutes due to a fault. In the end we were 30 minutes late landing in Sydney and had to sprint across to the terminal to get to our flight.

Out of breath at the gate, we were asked where our boarding passes were – we hadn’t received any in Brisbane, but she checked us in anyway. We asked her whether our bags would make it and she simply hurried us on to the plane. Phew, we made it!

On landing we found that, as expected, our bags had not made it between planes – we were assured they would be on the next flight and delivered to the hotel. We had immediately rushed to the Hertz car hire desk and picked up a very nice, very reasonably priced car – it works out so much cheaper and so much easier to hire a car than worry about the expensive tourist bus to and from Uluru.

Ultimately the lack of bags worked out very nicely with no need to check in, we simply drove a fellow bag-less passenger from Brisbane down to the resort (where she worked as a waitress) and then headed straight for Kata Tjuta, a rock formation some 50km west of Uluru.

We drove to the ‘Valley of the Winds’ walk and walked the first few hundred metres. The heat was intense (around 39 degrees Celsius) and the flies were numerous, so we were almost relieved when the rest of the track was closed due to the extreme temperatures. We then did the neighbouring gorge walk and returned to the car sweating and red faced.

On returning to the hotel, we found our bags had arrived and checked into our room in the Outback Pioneer Hotel. For AUD$170 the room was beyond basic, but as there are few options – and all in the same resort – there is little choice.

It was at this point that, while munching into a delicious bag of natural flavoured gummy sweets, I managed to pop out a filling – ouch! Laura saved the day by applying a filling of Dentex – thank goodness she was so well prepared, especially as we were booked to eat out that night at the Sounds Of Silence tour.

Shattered from our early morning start, we grabbed a tiny one hour of sleep before being picked up by a coach at 6pm for the tour. The site of the Sounds of Silence was actually some distance from both Uluru and Kata Tjutu and provided a good observation point for neither. This was a bit disappointing as we only had one chance to watch the sun set over the rock.

We were provided with a nice sparkling wine and orange juice and a few canapés were passed around – salmon, crocodile and feta, kangaroo steak and mustard. These were ok, but not particularly tasty or well cooked. We then all watched the sun set over Kata Tjuta before being led down to the dining area.

The tables sat about 10 people and we found ourselves with two English couples and a Scottish family from Dundee and their daughter who was travelling Australia. This was the highlight of the experience – lovely people and very interesting conversation, although as usual one fellow was a bit of an English boor. I wonder if that person is ever me?

The starter was a nice red pepper soup, accompanied by red or white wine. The main course was a buffet (served in the dark as they were having elecrical issues) that included: salads, crocodile Caesar salad, lamb sausages, kangaroo, chicken on a skewer (undercooked), beef caserole and very undercooked potatoes. Dessert was a buffet of brownies, bread and butter pudding, apple and wattle seed slice, fresh fruit and sauces. This was then followed by coffee, tea and port.

For something sold as a gourmet dining experience (and priced to match), the food itself was almost uniformly underwhelming and I certainly wouldn’t be able to recommend this as an eating experience. However, the astronomy talk then commenced and the view of the stars was completely awe inspiring, with the band of the milky way in plain view. The astronomer proceeded to point out the likes of Mars, Saturn and Orion before ushering us over to a telescope to view the rings of Saturn.

Some time later we all got back on the bus and headed back to the resort.