Back in 2015, Moth and I were invited to Uluru, Australia’s Red Centre for a scientific conference of Astronomy and such. Way over our heads for most of it, but it sure was an amazing excperience. I though I would share our adventures from five years ago. A little bit of armchair travel if you will. So many of you following me now, may not have seen these.
We landed at Uluru Airport at lunch time and climbed down from the plane, directly onto the tarmac, nothing fancy here kids. We walked in extremely bright, warm sunshine under the brightest of cobalt blue skies to the small bush terminal, collected out bags and drove the 10 minutes or so, by coach to the Ayers Rock Resort. The resort itself is a collection of different hotels and camping ground from 3 star up to 5 star, there are staff accommodation, art galleries, coffee shops, restaurants, souvenir shops, a bank, a post office, and a supermarket. Fully self contained, it even has a hop on, hop off bus service. You can walk the entire complex in 30 minutes if you wish. There is a town square and an amphitheater for lectures, movie nights and live music, as well as a convention center.
It is all nestled between big red sand dunes and at night they dim the lights, to where it almost disappears. We spent one evening out in the dunes shooting the night sky while listening to live music from the local pub!
The dunes were terrific spots to watch the sun set or rise as well, and of course we could see the Rock (Uluru) an Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) from here in the distance as well. We spent our first afternoon exploring the resort, getting the lay of the land, and checking out the views from each of the sand dunes surrounding the resort. We grabbed a bite to eat at one of the nearby restaurants, Gecko’s……it became a local of sorts during our visit. And after dinner we headed out to shoot the night sky. This was Moth’s first real attempt and he was quite excited when he saw that first shot of the Milky Way……….I remember the same feeling when I shot mine only a few months ago. It’s a great feeling.
Eventually we called it a night as we had an early start in the morning. As I am still waiting on approval for some images, some posts will be out of order with our actual trip, so please bear with me. Tomorrow I will post about Kings Canyon, what a truly magnificent day out!
-Julz
Julie Powell - Photographer & Graphic Artist 