Walked around Uluru, 1st September 2007

We woke up at 05:30 this morning, its still dark. We wanted to see the sun rise over Uluru. We had arranged to meet Sophie in the car park and drive over together. It was dark, no street lights and we only had a small torch and an idea of were Sophie was sleeping. We drove around looking for her, for about 30minutes and we had probably woken up lots of campers, as we drove around, shinning our torch at them. We were just about to leave without her, when we saw her walking around with her sleeping bag and pillow. She jumped into the van and told us she had slept outside the campsite on a sandy area which was the lookout. She could only find 1 flip flop and we told her that's there are lots of Dingo's around and we have heard stories from other campers that Dingos have stolen there footwear before. So of we went to Uluru, there were lots of people already there from coach trips, but we found a nice place and made breakfast and had a cup of tea watching the sun rise and the shadows of Uluru change to the yellows and orange colours that we all know and have seen. It was really peaceful and nice just to seat there and watch. The coach tripper's left and we were then nearly on our own. After a while we went to the visitors centre and found a free talk from a range starting a 10am so we joined him.It was a interpretation walk of about 3-5km, he explained all about the way the Anangu (aboriginal) people have used in for celebrations, events and even just living around it. In respect for the Anangu people we had decided not to climb Uluru, but were going to walk around the base, 10km (about 6 miles). It was starting to get hot so we took some water and started walking around. It got to about 30'C and the flies were everywhere. I counted the flies on Hannah's back and there must have been around 50 on her upper back and shoulders. We enjoyed the walk and the different views of Uluru and by the time we had finished the walk we really, really hated the flies. Going to buy a fly head net from the net shop we see them.
It was getting closer to when Sophie's bus was leaving, to take her back to Alice Springs, so we decided to go back to the campsite, shower and chilled out a little after our walk. We swapped emails and said our good byes to Sophie and then Hannah and I drove back to Uluru for this evening sun set, just the two of us and a beer. After it had got dark we drove back the campsite and had dinner and watched lots of wild rabbits running around the camp grounds, just playing and eating what ever food they found.