Day
5: Coober Pedy , SA to Uluru, NT
Today was our longest drive so far - at least
distance-wise, 756 km. But, we did it in just around 7 hours, including a
couple stops. You just gotta love that 130 km speed limit in NT! Also, it is
certainly quicker getting out of Coober Pedy (5 mins) than it is getting out of
Sydney (1 hour). Leaving Coober Pedy,
we were stuck again by all the piles of mullock. This is the rock that is dug out by miners,
and sucked out by a large vacuum and left on the surface. It is actually
illegal for the miners to backfill and put it back in their tunnels afterward!
(safety risk, apparently.) it leaves the entire mining area looking like a
habitat for giant moles.
From there our drive up to the NT was long but
uneventful. We stopped at Cadney Park roadhouse for breakfast, where we pulled
in at the same time as 2 other 4WDs, and continued to take turns passing each
other for the rest of the day.
The temperature continued to climb from 26 C when we left
CP, up to 37 C when we came into our hotel at Uluru. We are staying at the Outback Pioneer
Hotel.... One of the more affordable (hah!) hotels at the Ayers Rock
Resort. The room is nice, and there are
lots of options for dining, activities, tours and shopping at the resort.
We got here mid-afternoon, so just took some time to
chill out, catch up on msgs and emails, and check out the facilities before
heading out for the sunset viewing at Uluru.
Some of the websites I read about this left me with low expectations.
But, at least today, it was a really nice experience. We missed out on doing
the "Sounds of Silence" tour, which includes a bush tucker buffet
dinner, along with drinks and the sunset viewing - since they were already sold
out for today. So, we did our own bottle
of wine, with some leftover pizza and homemade salami we brought along. There
were lots of other tourists there of course, but all very friendly, sharing
their travel experiences and offering to take group photos for each other. One couple from Melbourne borrowed our tripod
to make a time-lapse video of the sunset... we should get a copy of it emailed
to us - if we do, we will add it to our page.
These are the mullock piles.... in some places near Coober Pedy, there are just hundreds of them, as far as you can see.
One of our stops - coming into NT.
....during sunset
...after sunset
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