How many pictures can you take of a rock?

This past weekend was ANZAC weekend, which means a long weekend and another trip to a famous Australia icon, Ayers Rock or Uluru.

This trip was planned 2 months ago and it was initially meant to be a trip with Adventure tours. However 1 week prior, the company found out that they booked us on the wrong tour, so we had a different itinerary sent to us. Thank goodness I booked the trip through a travel agent, so Micheal worked extremely to make sure that our trip was rebooked to my satisfaction. It would have been fine if everything went according to plans, however our plane got diverted to Alice Springs because of a crack in the windshield! So we got to Uluru late, which unfortunately meant we missed out on the Kata Tjuta tour.

However all things considered it was a fantastic trip. Because of the rebooking, we got to stay at the Outback Pioneer Hotel instead of camping. First night we did the sunset tour at Uluru, and for dinner I had the Outback burger, which consists of beef, pineapple, fried egg, bacon, tomato and the thing that makes it truly an Aussie burger --> Beetroot. It was a pretty good combination but I had a hard time putting it all in my mouth at one go!

Sunset at Uluru

The next day was a 5am start to King's Canyon. It's a 3 hour drive away and a 3 hour hike. The hike started with the "Cardiac hill" which really is only 500 stairs up. Apparently it's called Cardiac hill because you get a cardiac workout from it. After that we walked around the rim of the Canyon. The scenery was fantastic and the weather was perfect, warm with a bit of wind and perfectly blue skies.

King's Canyon

We got back in time for the Sound of Silence Dinner. It is a dinner set out in the National park between Uluru and Kata-Tjuta and we got to appreciate both of them in the sunset. They had a buffet dinner set out for us, with 5 salads, 4 different main courses and 4 desserts. The best was the lamb, followed by Kangaroo fillet. The crocodile salad was good as well. The best dessert was the warm apple crumble as it was starting to cool off after the sun went down. A neat part of the dinner was the astronomy class as the skies were completely clear to appreciate the stars.

Sunset with Kata Tjuta at the background

Feast!

Sunrise at Uluru, my favourite part of the trip