Uluru and Ulara, a rock and a City in the Outback

The plane for Ulara was quite empty, not many people think going there at the warmest time of the year, and then even between Xmas and New Years is a good idea. I was sitting next to a woman who was only spending 1 night there and still hoping to see most of it, at least I had 3 nights planned, which should be enough according to the books.
We arrive at the Ulara airport around 11 in the morning, the moment we step out of the airplane a nice heat hits us in the face. Ok, these 3 days are going to be warm for sure. The airport is tiny, but at least two airlines are using it, Qantas and Virgin. There is a free shuttle bus waiting in front of the airport, soon after it is clearly why it is free. There are 5 resorts in Ulara, the difference is the price you pay.
There are from luxury hotels all the way down to camping, all of which are owned by the same company. Unless you are in an auto-camper you would be living in one of those places. I come to the reception in the Pioneer lodge, another name for poor peoples sleeping quarters, the hostel. I meet Kitty at the front desk, a Japanese girl working here talking perfectly English. I asked her how to make the most of my days there as my original plan was to do a 3 days 4WD tour, but didn't have enough time. I told her what I was interested in and 2 minutes later she had come up with a schedule for me for my stay in the Heart of Australia.

There were no rooms ready yet, as the check-in time was officially at 14, so I changed to some real shoes and got ready for an afternoon in the desert. My feet were quite damaged from the flippers on the diving boat, either really cheap model or my feet are just weird. At least I had blisters a few places from rubbing and other places there had already been 3 blisters on top of each other which had been sanded of by band-aid or by friction in the flipper and now there was a nice flesh wound. It was a little painful to step into the shoes, now I was really missing my hiking boots!
I had a light lunch, the weirdest Pad Thai I have ever had, and was picked up from the hostel and driving to Ayers Rock or Uluru as the Aboriginals call it.
It is the biggest monolith on Earth so far found, which means it is one big piece of stone. It is big! The walk around the stone is 9.7km and adding up that this is in almost 40 degrees heat walking in the sun, that does take quite an effort. There are time estimates of how long it would take to walk around and strict rules about how much water to bring.
The walk around was timed at 4 hours, but people could do it in 3 hours, so I left plenty of time and was going to meet the bus driver at a cultural center 2kms further away to see the sunset. According to people the rock changes color during the day, I had to see that.
The rock has a few sacred places to the Aboriginals and they had been living close to and using caves of the stone for thousands of years. They had a lot of moral stories related to the stone and one of the bus drivers said that the stone was like a bible to them, explaining different things that you should not do, almost like the 10 commandments. Some areas were sacred others not so much, but there were no rule in the Aboriginal world that you could not climb the stone as they would never be so foolish to do so themselves. For them living life in the desert was about survival every single day, not being adventurous and showing off. The rock had been a source of water for them for thousands of years and to the wildlife living out here.
In some of the caves there were carvings many thousands years old, lizards, snakes and other animals depicted on the rock. The rock was closed for climbing because of this time of the year it was more sacred to them than other times. That meant I didn't have to chicken out by having the possibility of climbing, but not doing it, haha
On the tour around I did not meet many people, in fact only 2 couples, neither of which looked pretty prepared for that walk. A one liter bottle of water for sharing, flip flops and no hats. It was warm, and probably close to the hottest time of the day, but not uncomfortable as long as I stayed hydrated. After 2.5 hours I was around and walked up to the cultural center and when entering I could see a fridge full of cold drinks. Ahh, just what I needed, but was really disappointed to find out that the center had closed early 16:30 due to the holidays, and it was 16:40 now. Oh well, I only had two hours to wait until the bus driver would come and pick me up. There was another couple of people also waiting for the same bus, also a little disappointed sitting there on the benches looking at the cold drinks.
The bus arrived and we went to the rock to pick up some other people. The sunset was not until 19:35 so there was enough time to go around the rock in the bus getting a few stories about the place from the bus driver. After that we went to the sunset viewing area, which was already full of people. As the sun was setting the rock did change a little in color, but it was more like the fact that it got dark. I wasn't too impressed about the sunset looking at the rock, the sun setting over the bush looked far more interesting, so I there was 300 people taking pictures of a rock, and one stupid Dane standing with the back to the stone taking pictures of the empty bush instead
Back at the resort it was time for a beer for job well done. I don't think Australians have much taste for beers, all of them were as light as water, but out here that was the selection so I had to go with it. More than once, haha. Dinner was a $20 burger, out here everything doesn't cost a little more, it costs a LOT more!