Ayers Rock/Central Australia Outback

for more see below pictures....

We have had a really great week visiting Ayers Rock (also called Uluru) and we are now in Gold Coast in Queensland staying in the beach area called "Surfers Paradise".

The trip from Ayers Rock was pretty long, its a very remote area and one we debated on booking for a long time. The resort out there is really all there is, and so you only stay for a couple nights at most which makes it a lot of work!

The remoteness is what makes it even more unique, the seclusion and the landscape is really like nothing we could have imagined. It truly felt like we landed on an uninhabited planet.

We went out and toured around the area a bit and went out to a viewing area at sunset to watch as the "rock" changed colours. The first day we went out and decided to walk around the rock and take a little hike to the cultural center on site. We recieved stern warnings on the bus from the airport about dehydration, poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, dangerous dingos, biting monitor lizzards, extreme UV hazzards and everything else that can bite, burn or sting. The problem was that no one had mentioned anything to us about the flies...

When we stepped off the bus we were literally swarmed by flies. Flies in our mouths, ears, noses and everywhere else they could find. We were all constatntly orbitted by flies and looked like we were waiting for rice bags from the UN trucks as we swatted, ran, rolled, jumped and did everything we possibly could to evade the miserable little flies in 36 degree heat in the middle of the outback. Dave thought he was attracting them the most and was definitely Lord of the Flies. It all ended after a 2 km dash down the "scenic walking trail" to the cultural centre where for just 10$ you can buy fly netting to wear. We wore the fly nets eveytime we stepped outside again to ensure not one more fly was ingested.

The "sunset" was definitely a highlight as being out in the outback in that environment as the sun set was very tranquil (for about 2 minutes because of a "Mommy" or a "Daddy" interuption ha ha).

The national park and Ayers are World Heritage sites.

We spent today at our pool here at the hotel. The next couple days we are taking the kids to some of the theme parks, and we even have some childcare all lined up for the spa and dinner!