from coober pedy we continued on to Marla, which is just a "station" not more than a place for caravans and a gas station and from there we continued to Erldunda.
Erldunda is in the Northen Teritories so we left the state of South Australia !
We left our caravan in Marla station and went off to our first long off road 4x4 drive to the painted desert - it was a very nice drive and it was around 160Km off the main road into the desert. It was a lot of fun to drive off road and we discovered that we busted a welding point on the tail pipe - so I rigged something up to hold it and then I found a garage that had the correct part i needed and for 4$ worth I got it all fixed !
here is a site with a map so you can follow a little http://www.wilmap.com.au/mapsmain.html
After Marla we continued to Erldunda station which is the turning point for the famous Ayres rock or "Uluru" as the aboriginees call it.
Uluru is a great big monolith (1 single huge rock form) in the middle of australia most of australia's tourists go to this place and almost all of them fly to here becase its thousands of kilometers away from the main cities.
They have like a small desert resort built there with hotels and camping grounds a small shopping center and of course an airport.
We stayed there a few days and did a few walking trails, we also went to a close by (50Km) rock formations called "The Olga's" and did some walking trails there too. We visited the local culture center and learned a lot about the aboriginees and there customs too.
The "Main event" people do here is go see Uluru in sunset and sunrise when it has the most magnificant colours (see I am writing "colours" like an Australian with a "u").
Here are a few pictures:
This is the mysterious Mount Connor which we saw on the way to Uluru and thought initially it was uluru - it is very impressive and can be seen tens of kilometers away.
It resides in a private property and it not considered a tourist attrication (we tried to reach it on an off road way too when we left uluru - but after an hours driving on dirt roads we quite trying)
Ayres Rock (Uluru) at sun set - all the cars lined up and people just sitting and enjoying the view
During our 4 hour walking trip around Uluru we had an initial 1 hour free guided tour of the first section of the rock where they told us about how the rock is sacred to the local aboroginees and we saw very old paintings on the rock (they trace the aboriginees 60,000 years back in this continent) and we were told about their ceremonies here.
The aboriginees don't like people climbing the mountain because it is quite dangerous - the surface is very slippery and there are strong winds up there and 30 people already lost their lives climbing the rock.
When we asked why they let people climb we got the answer that although this land was returned to the native people the managing council also consists of the region's tourist board and the native community receive a percentage of the entry money to the park and they fear that if climbing will be banned then most tourists will not fly in ( several millions come each year !) - especially thre japaneese.
Money wins over tradition.
Here we are looking at old drawings on the rock.
on our way around the rock - stopping to feed the "kash kash"
just to give you a feeling about how big the rock really is :
walking the trail around the rock:
Our walking trip in "the olga's":
These are "the Olga's" (Atta junta in aboriginee)
This is Uluru seen from the olgas:
The desert around the Olga's:
A small station on the stuart highway (the one crossing the desert from south to north) with a great sign, of course we stopped and bought some thing to eat :)
A few eagles on the road eating a kangaroo's carcus
typical scene around here.
Uluru by day:
Olga's:
The painted desert dirt road showing which dirt paths are open and which are closed due to weather conditions (the paths run all across australia and many people cross the country travelling only on dirt roads)
a few wild horses we saw on the painted desert path
80Km away from the nearest road:
This is how the road in the painted desert looks like:
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