Monday, August 29, 2022

Uluru With Mum- Third Time Lucky

 After having to cancel our planned trip to Uluru and Alice Springs in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID lockdowns, mum and I finally managed to go in August 2022. Until we were actually sitting on the plane and ready to take off, we couldn't really get excited as you just didn't know if it would go ahead, but it did and it was worth the wait. I flew down on the Saturday, picked up a hire car and drove to mum's and then the next morning we drove back to the airport and flew with Jetstar ( they are the only ones that fly into Yulara) and we arrived at the Yulara at 12:30pn on the Sunday. It was around 22 degrees, sunny and clear blue skies. I must admit I was a bit ignorant about the area and had not done a whole lot of research into this trip till the last minute, as we had been disappointed before with having the trip cancelled. We had also booked through a travel agent as whenever I tried to co-ordinate flights and accommodation at Yulara it was always confusing.  

Yulara is the community about 14km away from Uluru where the resort is with all the varying sorts of accommodation, including hotels, apartments and campgrounds. To get the Uluru itself you either need to drive, hire a car or book tours. Ideally a car would have been good, but hire cars were very expensive and in short supply.

We settled into our hotel room, had a bit of a rest then set out to explore the resort and get our bearings. Yulura had a small town square with a couple of cafes, IGA, information centre, art gallery's and tourist shops. You could see Uluru in the distance.


On the tarmac at Yulura poor mum had to go up and down the steps with JetStar but she managed okay- not bad for an 86 year old! Notice the blue sky!




Our room at the Desert Sands Hotel for 4 nights. It was very comfortable with a double bed each and a nice patio with a garden outlook where we could here the birds tweeting away.








Palya means hello, goodbye, welcome, okay, good in the Anangu language


There were various free activities around the ressort, we enjoyed learning all about playing the didgeridoo on our first day there.


I took a short walk up to a viewing point where you could see Uluru 14 km away, I just loved the red sand.



Our first view of Uluru


 

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