Day Eight - June

To add to our adventures, Levi threw up last night. Just once, and he is fine this morning, so we are hoping it was just exhaustion. I was planning on a load of washing today...guess that's a definite now.

We got up in the dark to watch the sun rise over Uluru, as planned. It was quite cool this morning.

 

 

After sunrise, we drove to the base of the rock and carried Levi the 10.6km around it. It felt even longer than it sounds. The first few km's, the scenery keeps you going, but after a while it just feels like more of the same. About three-quarters of the way around, there is a little extra walk that takes you to a waterhole right at the base of the rock. It's tucked away in a little cove of greenery, and because it had rained only a few weeks before we got there, there was still water trickling down the rock from some plunge pools above.

Freezing. Wind chill factor was huge.

The Rock is covered in all sorts of ripples and marks.
Not as smooth up close as it looks from afar.

Fly nets were handy.

Most reliable water source at Uluru.

Then we headed back to camp and did a couple of loads of washing. We got some groceries at the IGA at the resort and filled up with diesel. $1.85 a litre. The boys played on the playground and met a few other boys to play soccer with.

Then we went out to the camel farm. The camels are all wild caught and then broken to saddle for tourist rides. The boys thought it was funny that one of camels was named Pete.

 

Zane has been determined to ride a camel ever since he learned about it, so today he was very brave and spent some of his own money to ride a camel. Levi was very disappointed to learn that you have to be 5 to ride a camel.

 

 

 The camel farm had a few other animals to look at as well - a collection of ducks, kangaroos, emu, and a water buffalo.

We checked out the shop and Zane and Levi each bought themselves a rainbow camel. There was a lot of camel trivia posted all around the walls, which was a fascinating read. I learned all about the Camel Corps in WWI. Not something I remember learning in school.

We went back into the national park to see the community centre, and were going to stay for the sunset, but everyone was tired and hungry, so we headed back to camp and watched the sunset from the top of the big red sand dune at the back of our campground.

Levi fell asleep in the car and just transferred straight to bed. He was asleep before 6 and didn't wake up until nearly 9 on Sunday.