Tuesday 26th April
Mark and I are off to central Australia for a week. It’s a trip I wasn’t all that keen on taking and as it turns out, our Uber cancelled at the last minute to get us to the airport, and so we very nearly didn’t take it.
The T2 terminal at the domestic airport was fairly chaotic due to the large volume of travelers in this new post Covid world. We were flying into Uluru and so the only choice of travel was Virgin or Jetstar and so Jetstar it was for us. It was quite a good flight and we made it to our lodging at Sails in the Desert by around 2:30 pm.
Our check-in Concierge was very impressed at the room rate I had received for our accommodation. I thought it was rather expensive at $550 a night but he told me that the same room now retails for $980 a night! Our room, Number 217 on level 1, was spacious and comfortable with a large terrace and it offered a view out towards the garden and pool area.
We settled in for a bit before heading out for a walk of the resort and over to the neighbouring shops to check out the indigenous art and to try and pick up some more tour activities. We thought we would splurge and do a helicopter tour, because we missed out on so many other tour offerings, but even joy flights were all sold out, and were so for the next two weeks. Word of advice: anyone who is planning on coming to Central Australia should make sure they book all tours and dinners etc well in advance.
Our dinner in the resort hotel was not until until 7.15 and so we filled in the time by walking the 10 min journey out to the sunset viewing platform to watch the sunset over Uluṟu. This was obviously a popular activity as there was a decent crowd doing exactly the same. Uluru was well off in the distance but it still carved out a spectacular sight as the sun set.
Dinner at Ilkaria was not quite what we expected. We were told it was going to be ‘an interactive dining experience’ but this actually just translated to a buffet. However it turned out to be pleasant enough and we had a nice meal before heading to bed around 8.30. We had an early start with a sunrise tour for the next day and needed to be up at 5 am so we were keen to get a good night sleep.
