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On Monday, I was up at 4am for the main tour I had purchased: the Desert Awakenings 4WD tour. At A$130, it was not cheap, but it promised the most interesting small-group experience.

I had reconfirmed my reservation when I got to the resort, and was told that I’d be picked up at 4:40am. As my hotel was the last pickup stop, it was closer to 5am. We drove 20km straight north of the resort on bush tracks to a secluded elevated sand dune that was to serve as our viewing area. The tour guide’s assistant had breakfast cooking (bacon/egg sandwiches and a sweet bread that bakes in a cast iron skillet, coffee, juices), and the 14 of us worked our way to the top of the dune at about 5:30am. Sunrise was just after 6, and the guide alternated between giving us time to wake up and telling us about our desert surroundings. The sunrise was spectacular, and we could see both Uluru and the Olgas (another formation about 50 minutes west) in the dawn.

We left the viewing area close to 7, and the rest of the tour was a standard tour of the rock itself. The only real “4WD” portion was the fact that we were on a graded sand and clay road for most of those 20km each way to/from the viewing area. It was not like we were cutting across the desert here and there, so the title is a bit misleading. After a quick stop where I had been the day before, we spent most of our outside time touring a 1km section of the SW (or “back”) portion of the rock formation. Each major portion of the rock formation has an Aboriginal story to explain it: this one was about two snakes who were having a conflict around one of the snake’s newly-deceased brother in law….

The last 45 minutes were spent at the cultural center. In retrospect, I could have taken the sunset tour the night before instead of going earlier on my own for the extra 90 minutes, since the morning tour covered many of the same areas.

I think the tour was a decent value compared to the other tours here. The guide was very informative, we covered more topics than just Uluru over five hours, and I like the smaller touring size. “Overpriced” here is a relative term.

We got back just after 10am. This is important because I probably could have gotten out of here in one day instead of two, as the Monday flight to Sydney is at 12:30pm, and the shuttle bus for the airport leaves at 11:10am. (My flight tomorrow is at 10:55am, so I couldn’t have flown up on Monday from Melbourne and done the tour Tuesday morning.) But since I cancelled a two-day reservation on a day’s notice two weeks ago, and they let me move it without penalty even though I was in the 100% penalty period, I guess it was ok.

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Or is it Uluru aka Ayers Rock?  After all, the indigineous people were there first….

So you read the articles and the guidebooks, and you know that it is big.  But no matter how much you prepare yourself, you still cannot believe how big this sandstone is:  9km in circumfrence, 4km at its widest point.  It is like visiting a city and not being able to get into it.  And even after 100 photos, you still find a reason to take another photo or three.

I arrived at Ayers Rock airport at 2:40pm on Sunday, and managed to get on the last regular shuttle bus to the rock at 4pm.  It takes about a half hour to get from the resort to the cultural center, and I had two hours before the sunset tour bus would pick me up at the rock at 6:30pm.  At 4:30pm, it was just starting to cool down, and it was down to 102 degrees.   But the weather is like Arizona - very little humidity meant that it felt much better than the 95 degree day in Melbourne last week.

I spent forty five minutes in the cultural center, which is geared towards explaining the differences between the Aboriginal and European way of looking at things.   There are no shuttle buses within the national park.  In fact, there’s not much of anything within the park.  So I had to walk 2km to the base of the rock along a wide sand trail.  Going slowly and taking pictures, it took about 40 minutes.  I had picked up a liter and a quarter of water at the hotel for the extortionist price of A$7, and picked up a 20oz Powerade at the cultural center’s cafe.  That was enough to keep me going for the two hours.

When I got to the base of the rock, I was at the area where some idiots try to climb it.  It’s 348 meters at a rather steep incline, and two or three idiots kill themselves each year.  The indiginous people (who lease the area back to the government) would prefer that people not die on their property, and I can’t say that I blame them.

I was able to spend a bit more than an hour walking around the NE corner of the formation.   The rock is actually layers of sandstone formed flat 60,000 years ago that have been squished into an accordian shape by various continental shifts.  What we see is the end of the squished sandstone formation sticking up above where the erosion over time has lowered the base land level.  I have tons of photos, but they’ll have to wait until I get to Sydney to be uploaded.

The minibus came by promptly at 6:30pm, and the only displeasurable part of the evening took place:  we had to wait for a sunset that was not going to come.  The evening tour is sold as a drive around Uluru and an hour at a viewing site to see how the colors of the sunset affect the colors of the rock.  But it was very cloudy, and obvious that nothing at all was going to happen.  We still had to sit outside for an hour waiting for it to get dark before they mercifully took us back to our hotels.

I had made reservations at the fancy resort for their buffet dinner.   It was very good, although the service was very slow and disorganized.  For $58 plus drinks, it was a bit of a rip-off, but compared to everything else here it was actually on the reasonable side.

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Today is Sunday, and I am writing from the Alice Springs airport, where Qantas has been kind enough to provide free wireless Internet access for my 3.5 hour layover.   I did not make it online while I was in Melbourne, so I’ll take a few minutes here to catch up.

When I last wrote, I was in Launceston waiting for my flight to Melbourne.  Virgin Blue has a very efficient operation, and even with the plane for our flight arriving from Melbourne 35 minutes late, we made it into Melbourne only about ten minutes late.   Virgin Blue is another nickel-and-dime low cost carrier: you get your seat and one checked bag, and everything else costs something.   A second checked bag is A$20 if you pay for it when you buy your ticket, and a lot more if you just show up with it.   A Diet Coke is A$2.50, a couple of cookies are A$2, and the in-flight satellite TV is A$5 for a short flight.  On the other hand, my ticket was A$72, of which two thirds of it were taxes.    That works for me.

Melbourne was rainy when I arrived, and stayed rainy for all 33 hours I was there.   This is a good thing, as most of Australia is undergoing a severe drought, and the rain is welcome.  My Uncle George and Aunt Debra met me at the gate (I’m not used to people being able to get through security without a ticket any more), and drove me to both the Westin to pick up my larger suitcase from storage, and then the Park Hyatt.

The Park Hyatt was a fabulous hotel.  I seriously doubt that I’d actually pay A$600 a night for a room there, but for an award stay it was excellent.   As a Diamond member from 25 Hyatt stays last year, I was upgraded to a gigantic corner room, about 500 square feet, and got breakfast for free.  It was just a very comfortable, classy place, the type of place where I didn’t even think twice about dropping A$5 for a cup of coffee in their lounge while killing time early Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday, I went out for a walk in the late morning and did some shopping, then Steven and Betty picked me up just before 3pm and took me to Uncle George’s house.  A tremendous amount of family had gathered, many stopping in for just a couple of hours on the way to other committments.  I met a number of second cousins and their families, and we spent the entire evening eating and chatting about a wide variety of topics.  I think I might have helped encourage a couple of them to come to the States for vacation while the US dollar is incredibly low.   I got back to the hotel at about 11 and crashed for five hours, then packed and took a cab to the Southern Cross station to pick up the Skybus service to the airport.

Melbourne turned out better than I possibly could have imagined.  I don’t know if Americans are able to completely go all out in the way that my relatives did.   My dad was able to speak with his cousins, some of whom he had not spoken to in over half a century.  Hopefully technology will allow us to keep the momentum we’ve been able to build over the past ten days, and keep in closer touch.

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Today was a fun day.  I slept in, left the hotel at about 11, spent most of the day driving (up to Devonport which was bleh, then over to the Tamar Valley wine region), killed about 90 minutes back at the hotel’s off-track betting area wagering a whopping $15 over the course of an hour - and getting $17 back, and drove to the airport.

Somewhere along the way this week, however, I managed to scrape the front left bumper of my rental car.  I must have caught it againt a post someplace, it was not the type of thing that would come from gravel.   So Hertz charged me $200 for the damage.  How do they know it’s $200.  Good question….

Now, I had “max” coverage at $23/day ($115), but that only lowers the deductible to A$385 in Tasmania.   I’ll have to try to get reimbursed by Visa.

I’m now sitting in the Launceston Airport waiting for my flight to Melbourne.  Tasmania was a lot of fun.  I’d like to come back for maybe 3 days next time to tour the western coast of the island.

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After getting a long night’s sleep last night, I’m going to spend this afternoon driving around Launceston and the Tamar Valley wine routes.  I don’t intend on picking up any wine, by the time I pay the excess shipping charges I may as well just buy it in Chicago.

I have to get out to the airport by about 7:45pm, for my flight to Melbourne on Virgin Blue at 9:30pm.  I checked in online and it’s surprisingly full for a late night flight that does not connect to any other flights.    But for A$72, it was a surprisingly good fare.  My uncle George is going to pick me up at the airport, and I suspect we’ll make a stop or two on the way to the hotel.

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Some more photos, these are of Tasmania. Click the link for the shutterfly album.

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Every vacation this long needs some slow days. Rather than trying to jam in another destination, I had booked one extra day in Sydney, Melbourne, and on Tasmania. Today is essentially the extra Tassie day - I’m being a bum and not doing very much other than catching up on doing nothing.

The drive from Bicheno to Launceston was rather boring once you got to St. Mary’s. I decided to skip St. Helens and go through something called the “Elephant Pass.” It turns out that the local mountain is Mount Elephant, and the pass sends you along the mountainside for about 20 km. 10km of it is extremely windy, recommended speed of 25 kph. That was a lot of fun, and some interesting scenery; I would like to do it in a car with better handling. After that, the drive was very flat through the grass ranges, very boring.

Right now, I am at the Country Club of Tasmania. It is a little resort about 8km southwest of Launceston. It has a highly rated golf course, a very small casino, and a nature preserve. For A$149 including free high-speed internet (worth about A$30), it is a very nice little place. On a Thursday afternoon, it’s dead quiet.

I’ve been loading photos up onto shutterfly, and while I’m waiting I’m going over to the off-track betting. I thought they did not have show betting in Australia, but it turns out that “place” means what “show” means in the US, and there is no 2nd-place betting. Also, the minimum bet is 50 cents. This is my kind of betting, and I’ll probably hang out there tonight if it gets a little busier. But first I need to go find a grocery store to stock up on supplies for tonight/tomorrow.

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The penguin tour last night from Bicheno Penguin Tours was outstanding.  I only got a couple of very bad photos because one of the rules of the tour is no additional light beyond what they provide.   The tour started after dark (I originally thought it would be at sunset) because the penguins are out on the water all day long, and come back at dark to feed their young.  There were a mix of adult penguins, baby penguins just old enough to go out to the water, and baby penguins not quite ready for the water, being fed by their parents.   Penguins can tell their offspring by their smell, and thus won’t feed anyone else’s young but their own.

The penguins have little nests in various nooks and crannys along the shoreline.  Some go in as far as a half a kilometer.  They’ll nest anywhere, so the rookery has set up various artificial “penguin igloos” to provide a better defense against feral cats and dogs.  The guide tries very hard to keep the habitat has natural as possible, and has slowly increased the amount of torchlight to which the penguins are exposed.

This was an incredible experience, and certainly quite different than the commercial production at Phillip Island.   We probably saw about 70 penguins, instead of a thousand, but we also got to get within a foot of them, and see where they live in a natural habitat.

I’m writing from a cafe down the street from the hotel.  I’ve checked out, and after a side trip this morning back to Coles Bay for some gift shopping, I’m on my way to St. Helens and then Launceston.

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Today I visited Freycinet National Park, off of the town of Coles Bay, about 20 minutes south of my hotel. Coles Bay has one of those vibes that screams “tremendous amounts of drugs were used here in 1970.” But today, it’s a small town with rental properties and a few businesses, boat tours, stuff like that. I stopped and looked around and picked up a late breakfast, then made my way into the park.

My purpose for the visit was similar to most people there: to do the hike to the Wineglass Bay lookout. There were shorter walks, and there were multi-day camping scenarios, but 90% of the people there were going to see Wineglass Bay. Most of us would do the hike from the parking area to the lookout, situated between two mountains above the bay. A few more athletic souls would do another hour of very steep hiking to get down to the beach itself, then wonder how they were going to climb all that way back!

Personally, I thought the lookout walk was steep enough, thank you very much. It has over 600 steps, making it the biggest elevation differences I’ve climbed - the previous had been at the Vatican. The path was well marked through the stone, and they had made wooden step frames about 80% of the time.

The hike is marked at 45 minutes, and most people were doing it in 35-40. Of course, I’m not most people, not to mention that I’m not in shape at all. It took me 66 minutes following a very rigid protocol: stop every four minutes or every 20 consecutive steps for a minute, stop every 15 minutes for five. After all, what else did I have to do today??

The view from the lookout was worth the climb. I stayed up there for about 45 minutes before starting to make my way back down. What amazed me was how so many people were getting up there, staying 5-10 minutes, and then leaving! If you are not going to enjoy the view, save yourself the aggrevation and buy a post card from the gift shop… The walk down should have been much faster, but a lot of the steps had their front faces smoothed downward, so I had to be very careful where I planted my feet when climbing down. It took me about 45 minutes with only one break. After that, I rested at the bottom for a while, then drove over and did the boardwalk-style walk around the lighthouse at Cape Tourville.

I came back to the hotel and just chilled out for a few hours, including doing three days worth of laundry so that I have enough clean clothes for the rest of the trip. I spent dinner working through my photos in Picasa, but I don’t have a good enough Internet connection to load them up today. I have about 520 photos to date for the trip, of which a fair amount of duplicates of landscapes.

Tonight, I am going on a penguin watching tour here in Bicheno. It leaves at 9:45pm, and goes out and watches the penguins come back onto the beach at sunset. It’s either going to be a blast or a tourist trap, or maybe both!

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