To continue with what I was saying in day seven’s post – my clothes were soaked and there was no time to find a working dryer. I had to shove them all into a plastic bag a bag and we headed off to our events for day eight. Because I had wanted to wash pretty much every piece of clothing I brought (I thought I was being productive!) I had no choice but to wear a pajama top for a shirt that day. See mom? Just thinking about taking a rock from Uluru for you brought me bad luck!
Today we were going to Kata Tjuta, which is a rock formation right next to Uluru. The name means “many heads”, and is named because of the look of many rocks jutting into the sky. We did decide to first take an unscheduled trip back to Uluru. It was still raining, which so rarely happens in this area. We wanted to see what so few people have the chance to see – water cascading down Uluru. Gus told us that only around 4% of all people who see Uluru get to see it in the rain. Below I have a few pictures where you can see the water falling down the rock. It’s not raining that hard at this time, so there are only small waterfalls, but it’s still a sight to see:
After driving around Uluru, we set off to Kata Tjuta.
This rock formation was a sacred man’s site. Aboriginal woman were not allowed to set foot here. It was another three hour walk around this mountain, and it rained on and off for our entire hike. Because of the rain we were treated to more bird life than is typically common at this time of the year.
Everything was pretty wet and slippery, so we (especially typically klutzy me) had to be particularly careful. The climbing on this hike was a bit harder than yesterday, but the walk was exhilarating.
Afterwards we went back to the camp site for a few hours and I found another laundry room where I tried to get my clothing dry before we left again for the day. Luckily I just barely managed to get them dry before we had to leave. For once, the winds were in my favor!
We set off again, with another quick stop at a little pub/store. The owners had a few pet emus which I took some nice pictures of. Emus are fascinating, aren’t they?
Our camp for day eight was in Kakara (I’m not 100% positive about the spelling but I am on a roll with these posts and I don’t want to stop to look it up now!) among the desert oaks. This place had such a mysterious look to it. The trees in the sunset were beautiful.
As we were looking for just the right place to camp, our trailer got stuck in the mud. We spent a good hour trying different things to try to get it unstuck. We finally unhooked the trailer and connected it to the truck with a rope to try to drag it from farther away. After a few tries (and help from the sh** shovel to dig up around the tires) it came loose so we could continue to camp.
This time our camp site was absolutely crawling with ants, and these ants were nasty. I can only believe that their personal motto was to bite first, and ask questions later. They were mean little buggers! Camp this night was ok, but a good deal of it was spent trying to dry out the sleeping bags and swags with the fire. This night it was taco wraps for dinner. We ate without too much conversation that night and then went to sleep in our damp swags amongst the biting ants. They actually weren’t that bad if you got closer to the fire, but we were all tired, wet, and cranky at that point and I want you to get the mood of our group! I especially felt bad for the four of us who were sick. Sleeping in a wet bed while you are not feeling well is never a good idea.
On to day nine! Will I finally catch up with my posts tonight? Let’s find out!