Australia – Uluru… Continued…

After our afternoon walk through the Walpa Gorge our group was driven to one of the Uluru sunset viewing areas.

Upon arrival, locals were selling some art, which I had intended to take a look at, but totally missed.

I will be kicking myself for that later…

There were also tables set up with wine, bubbly, juice and snacks.

I grabbed a glass of bubbly and found a spot where I could snap as many photos as possible of Uluru.

Sock Monkey may have also made an appearance.

Wait, I may not have explained #SockMonkeyTour on the blog yet. That’ll have to be for another post.

Then, we waited… Did I mention that the wine was flowing freely?

I will warn you that I took these photos with my old iPhone 4, so no way do these pictures do our views and experience any justice. {The iPhone 6 was released upon our return from Australia, when we promptly made the upgrade!}

I did bring my old digital camera with me to Australia. It actually used to take stellar photos. {That is, until I got an iPhone, became lazy and stopped carrying around the digital camera.} However, I didn’t get it to work properly, despite the new battery I put in it before we left. Sigh… So iPhone 4 photos it is…

Our guide recommended that we take several photos, every couple of minutes because the changes are subtle as the sun slowly sets. Once you go back and take a look at the photos, you are more apt to notice the beautiful changes in the sky and the color of the rock!

 

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Once the sun goes down completely, it becomes pitch black. It’s like someone turned out the lights! Our group left before that was about to happen to make our way toward dinner, which was also part of our tour.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos at dinner, but behold our experience:

{You may find it funny.}

We arrived quite near The Rock where tables were set up. As we walked to our seats, I saw the chefs grilling some steaks on the barbie and then eyed the buffet feast laid out before us. There was Uluru, in all its glory just as the sun finished setting. There were a few different tour groups and we were instructed to sit with our own.

Let’s remind you that we each had a few glasses of wine at sunset. And do you think I can even remember what we did for lunch that day? So when I ate last, I can’t even remember.

Lights were positioned so that our dining and buffet area was lit. But that was it. It truly was pitch black, otherwise. There were some basic announcements before dinner, like where to find the toilets. We were warned to follow the {very} dim lights on the not-so-even path because there have been people became lost coming back before…

We sat down and our wine glasses were filled. And throughout dinner, the wine kept flowing. Before I’d finish a glass, it would somehow get filled right up again. It was decent wine, too… not anything sweet or generic like you’d find with every House Cab you’ll order in the U.S.

One reason why I have no photos is that we began to get very chatty with all of the people at our table. Wine will help with that! The couples next to us were Brits. I loved hearing all of their travel stories. We started talking about how Australians seemed to so well-traveled. Most of us agreed that it is really just apart of their culture. Australia is set apart from so much else that if they want to travel anywhere {other than New Zealand}, they’d have to take a long haul flight.

The buffet included all kinds of salads and sides as well as steak and kangaroo meat. You guys, I just couldn’t do it. I usually will try anything once. But, hey, I was just wowed by these animals a few days prior! Kangaroo isn’t eaten all that often in Australia. I mean, people do it. You’ll find it in grocery stores and restaurants; but we are told that most Australians don’t really eat it.

After dinner, and all of that wine, I excused myself to the restroom. I finally found my way back. {I really did have a bit of a difficult time! Those lights were so dim and the pathway wasn’t very clear!} At this point, people were getting up from the table, but my husband was no where to be seen. Maybe he went to the restroom himself?

It was announced that it was a beautifully clear night and that we would do some stargazing with our guide pointing out constellations and telling stories with a laser pointer.

Where was my husband?!

This was one of the things I knew he was going to love and one of the reasons I booked this specific tour. I knew that stargazing in such a remote and beautiful place would make another reason why he would be grateful we didn’t skip Uluru.

Then the presentation started. I stood around the periphery. But I couldn’t concentrate on her presentation. I was too worried.

Why isn’t he back?!

{Remind you, I couldn’t call/text because we didn’t have service in Australia. Our phones were in Airplane mode, so we could use wi-fi only.}

So I started my way back to the restrooms and didn’t find him there either. Then, I asked the first worker I saw for help. {It was the chef!}

“I can’t find my husband!” I exclaimed.

I apologized about a gazillion times and began to tell him (and now others) how stupid I felt. They were going to try to look in the vicinity for him, while they were cleaning up.

At this point, the stargazing presentation was almost over and I missed most of it.

All of a sudden, someone came up behind me.

“Hey! Wasn’t that awesome!?”

It. Was. Rob.

“What? I thought you missed it!!! I was worried about you! I couldn’t find you!”

“Oh. I was lying on the concrete over there, looking up at the stars. I was next to some Asian group. He was using a laser pointer, but I couldn’t understand a word he said. It was so beautiful though!”

Huh.

“I found him!” I yelled to the staff.

Then I felt stupid all over again. I was the half-drunken tourist who couldn’t find her husband who was there the whole time.

At least he enjoyed the stars… 

We brought back a souvenir:

I have no idea what time it was that we got back to our hotel room. All I knew is that the alarm clock had to be set early for tomorrow’s sunrise viewing of Uluru…

~

Other posts on the Red Centre:

• Visiting Uluru & the Vicinity
• Kata Tjuta – Walpa Gorge

Other posts about our trip to Australia:

• he One Thing I Didn’t Need to Bring to Australia
• The Wattle and Bush Tucker
• Scenes from Sydney
• A Morning at Bond-Eye
• The Blue Mountains
• Sydney Eats
• Sydney Dinners: His & Hers Picks
• An Afternoon in Melbourne
• Meet our Aussie Mum & Dad
• Is This Real Life {Penguin Parade}
• Permagrin, Australia {Or That Time We Fed the ‘Roos}
• It’s Not a Bear. And That’s Not a Bat.
• Thirsty Thursday in Melbourne
• There’s More to Travel Than What You See
• A Little Italian in Melbourne
• Australia: Visiting Uluru
• Kata Tjuta – Walpa Gorge

Have you ever been worried about someone because they hadn’t returned and later felt silly? What happened?

Cheers~
Carrie