First glimpse of Uluru
Yup, it's a big red rock in the middle of nowhere. This picture was
taken from a bus, so that's why it's a little blurred in front. The
Aboriginies are trying to get us to call Ayers Rock "Uluru", which we
should probably do since they did see it first and all.
Permanent watering hole
Somehow, this little pond is always here, even if it's been 110 degrees
and hasn't rained for 10 months staight. It's cool, but I don't get it.
Uluru at sunset, more clouds
This photo was taken just minutes before the "less clouds" one.
Uluru at sunset, less clouds
It turns so red because of the diffracted red light from the sunset.
(Sorry it's blurry, but you get the idea.)
Uluru from a helicoptor
I took a helicoptor ride while we were at Ayers Rock. It was fun.
Anyway, if you look at this picture, the path that people take to climb
up is at the far right and sticks out into the plain a little ways. The
path is steep enough that they have a chain you can hold on to so that
you don't fall off. Yeah, no thank you. :)
The Olgas from the helicoptor
I hadn't heard of them until we got there, but another rock formation
called the Olgas is also right near Uluru, but it was a little too far
away to drive there. So, I saw it from the helicoptor! It's another
big formation sticking out of the ground in the middle of nowhere.
The helicoptor
This is the helicoptor I got to ride in. They let me sit in front. :)
Cute camel
I went on a camel ride while in Ayers Rock. This isn't the camel I rode
on, but I thought he was cute. You may be asking yourself whether
camels are native to Australia. Well, they're not, but now there are a
ton of them there. See, what happened was that the British "discovered"
Australia and then decided to explore it. Well, they tried to use
horses, but they all died in the desert. So, they figured that camels
would do well and they imported some. Several years later, after they'd
explored the country and set up some railroads and stuff, they didn't
need the camels any more, so they just let them loose in the wild,
figuring they'd die off. They released about 1000 camels or something,
and today there are over 600,000 wild camels in the outback.
