Leaving Yulara

Later that evening Alan and I went to dinner at the Outback Pioneer, the kind of budget accommodation of the resort. Dinner there involved buying a cut of the raw meat of your choice at the counter and cooking it yourself on one of the many grills available. I had a big lamb steak as it had been a while since I'd eaten lamb. There was a salad bar there too to accompany your meat with salad, baked potatos and the like.

Entertainment was provided by the old guy on the stage at the front who was played a set of acoustic covers before becoming a DJ. He stuck mostly to classic shady DJ fare like Wham and Abba but the young crowd which filled the small dance floor lapped it up. At one point I got harassed into joining a conga which thankfully fininshed within seconds of me grudgingly getting to my feet.

The next morning I rose a little later than I had intended, jumped into Chops2 and bolted off to try not to miss the sunrise for the second day in a row. Luckily I didn't miss seeing it, although I had to make do with watching it from the car as, again, I made it to the viewing area a little late.

After taking a couple more pictures I headed off to the Mala car park at the base of the rock, this time so that I could do the 9.4km walk around the base of Ayers Rock.

The walk takes you past many interesting features as well as past quite a few sites which are of spiritual importance to the Mala people. There are signs at such sites which tell you not to photograph these areas but, unlike with climbing the rock, fines apply if you are caught ignoring these signs. Often there was very little to see at these sites and so it wasn't really a problem to not take photos.

The walk took almost two hours in total and by the time I was finished the initially cold morning had warmed considerably. I was really getting used to the sunshine again.

After leaving the rock I headed back to Alan's place to pick up my bags and Alan gave me a lift to Connellan Airport in time for my 13:35 flight to Brisbane via Sydney.