Walt,
Sounds like some trip you had! November would have been getting quite hot,
but perhaps lots of wildflowers? The old Ayers Rock campsite that you would
remember was closed and bulldozed years ago although there is a newer
visitors' centre near the Rock somewhere. The main tourist camp is now
about 30 km from the Rock, known as Yulara Village if I recall correctly,
where there's a big airport, big hotels, big swimming pools, cabins, camping
area etc. Hours of visiting the Rock and the Olgas are very restricted,
there's toll gates and such like. The Rock is now known as Uluru and the
Olgas are Katajuta. I have vowed never to climb the Rock again, last time
on my way back down I stepped over the body of a heart-attack victim. No
wonder the local indigenous people don't like people clambering over the
Rock! The kangaroo-tail formation is still closed to tourists, who mostly
seem to respect the 'keep out' signs. But it's all a bit of a theme-park
these days, alas. For those who have never been there though, the scenery
is awesome. I've seen the Rock in heavy rain, with waterfalls rushing down
everywhere, just amazing! The road west of the Olgas would probably still
be restricted, you would need a permit to travel through Aboriginal lands.
Vicki Powys
Australia
on 8/11/02 11:57 AM, Walter Knapp at wrote:
> I was there in November. Did not get to walk the Olgas as much as I'd
> have wished. My two sons were only game for fairly short walks away from
> their toys in the camper. They did want to go to the top of Ayers Rock,
> but I decided that they would have ended up having me carry both. I do
> remember seeing folks who appeared to be camping out at the Olgas.
>
> At the time there was a restriction sign on the road for heading farther
> west than the Olgas, I drove all the way around them a couple times, and
> walked several of the shorter trips. There were no restrictions on being
> in them that I saw. They have so much more character than Ayers Rock. At
> Ayers Rock only a small area around the initiation site was restricted.
> One old fellow I talked to at the time told me it had been so long since
> that was used that no one remembered the ceremony anymore.
>
> I camped in the dusty "camp" at Ayer's Rock, I don't remember the hotel
> as being all that big or fancy, and most bus groups were camping. Guess
> it's been enlarged.
>
> It was fun talking to the rangers at the sunset spot. The tourists were
> mostly bussed out, and shot their photos (with probably the wrong
> settings) when the bus driver told them to. Then they would all load up
> and go away and it was quiet for the last of sunset and dusk. I wandered
> around Ayers Rock at night as well, did not hike in the Olgas at night,
> though I was out there one night when there was a thunderstorm. Lots
> goes on at night out in that country, real and imagined.
>
> They had just started putting in pavement when I was out. Went for a
> little ways off the central highway, then it was nice enough dirt until
> we passed the grading crew about half way out. On the way out from the
> rock we met a family trying to figure out what to do about their tent
> trailer. It was sitting on the ground with various parts of axle and
> springs scattered for quite a ways. I had tools, but we could not find
> enough of the parts. Finally left the trailer there and they went on
> into the rock to see if there might be parts at the station there.
>
> Then it started raining and I and a older guy more or less drove along
> in convoy. Towed one broken down car we could not fix to the next
> station down the road in the mud. By the time I reached pavement the
> radiator was not cooling very well because of the mud. Cleaned that out,
> then the next day, in Coober Peedy the clutch and alternator were
> stopped by mud. Ended up getting the rest of the way south on a car
> carrier who had delivered a load of used cars up there. After the Toyota
> dealership got the clutch cleaned out went to a car wash and checked to
> see if there was still a camper under the mud.
>
> It was a grand trip. That was only part, I started and ended the trip in
> Brisbane. Did not get out into West Australia, but covered a bunch of
> the rest, mostly going where people weren't. Wore out two sets of tires
> on the camper.
>
> Walt
>
> Vicki Powys wrote:
>
>> So I must have almost bumped into you, I was camped (with permission) right
>> near the Olgas in 1979 (such things are not possible these days), I had no
>> vehicle and was carrying canvas and paints and a backpack, walking out each
>> day to capture the landscape. I walked all through the Olgas and saw maybe
>> one person in three weeks. Now the road is tar all the way from the Stuart
>> Highway to Ayers Rock, and not only that, a whole new road has gone in from
>> Ayers Rock to the Olgas and that too is tarred, taking away all the magic of
>> that old and winding orange road leading to the distant pink and purple
>> humpy mountains of the Olgas. You can't walk through the Olgas any more I
>> don't think, just maybe stand on a square marked X to take a pretty snapshot
>> before retiring to your international hotel with swimming pool back at the
>> new vast 'village' site out from Ayers Rock. In 1979 I was whistling
>> polyphonic harmonies with three Pied Butcherbirds, as I painted, and at
>> night I slept in the folds of red sandhills and woke to the chimes of
>> Crested Bellbirds. (Ahh, those were the days!)
>
>
>
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