9 hours ago
Uluru with friends
It feels like just me and 102 close friends at Uluru.
Considering we only flew yesterday from Perth direct to Yulara, the airport for Uluru, in under two hours, that's remarkable to me.
But then, we are drawn together by our love of the world, and Australia in particular, and by this peculiar adventure.
We have partnered with our trusted friends, Holidays of Australia and the World, to charter a National Jet Express Embraer 190 aircraft. Happily, that meant checking in and boarding at NJE's base on the edge of the Perth domestic airport, rather than going through the airport itself. NJE's staff are professional, cheery and helpful.
And off we go, with two in the cockpit, three cabin crew and two technical staff — all of who will stay (along with the aircraft) for the four days and three nights we are at Uluru.
We fly over this broad landscape of inland WA, with the dot paintings of salt lakes below in the Wheatbelt, Goldfields and Great Victoria Desert — and the earth seeming to redden as we head east.
We cross the border quite near Surveyor Generals Corner — the spot where WA, South Australia and the Northern Territory meet.
A fly-around has been requested and approved, and the E190 does a figure of eight, so that we see both Kata Tjuta and Uluru from the air.
It's a nice little taster. A scene-setter.
We land and are straight into AAT Kings buses, with our bags loaded directly onto the coaches and then taken to our rooms at Sails in the Desert.
Yulara township, run by Voyages, an Indigenous company, has a range of hotels and accommodation, and Sails in the Desert is the five-star top offering.
The rooms are spacious and fully serviced. The central garden and pool area is haunted by ghost gums.
It's a comfortable base for our adventure.
And that adventure begins at 7.50pm on that first evening, after an early dinner, when we board buses again to drive in the dark to see Field of Light — the 50,000 spindles of light installed by artist Bruce Munro (with help, of course). The lights emphasise the curves of the landscape and change through a spectrum of ochre, deep violet, blue and soft white.
It's a chance to take pictures, too, of course. Turn the flash off and hold the phone camera still. Light your friends with another phone torch … and hold the phone camera still.
I sleep well in one of my two queen-sized beds, rise early, pick up my boxed breakfast — and the adventure takes a step up when I step onto an AAT Kings coach again at 6.15am.
Day two, and I feel very much at home in the red dirt.
Throughout the short trip we are fortunate with weather — with temperatures rising into the early 20 degrees under a blue sky during the day and cool evenings. But this morning, as we are driving to a sunrise viewing spot to see the sky turn through dramatic pastel hues and early rays of sun hit the big red body of Uluru, it is cold.
I have a few layers on but rather envy the gloves one of my companions is wearing.
The cluster of new friends up on the timber platform can see the sun one side and Uluru the other, and I can hear them chatting happily in low voices. But, after joining them, I also walk down onto a lower path to see Uluru sitting where I like it, in this semi arid landscape of red earth and spinifex. In some pictures, I like to focus on this foreground, and have the big arkose sandstone lump just slightly out of focus in the background. To have the foreground in focus, I touch and hold my phone camera's screen in the spot the spinifex is.
We then drive on around Uluru, stopping to walk into Mutitjulu Waterhole, all with the excellent narrative of our AAT Kings guide.
The guides train through Charles Darwin University, which has a short course called Uluru-Kata Tjuta Knowledge for Tour Guides. It gives tour guides essential information about Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and since 2011, all guides leading tours in the park have had to successfully complete the course. It was developed by park staff, Anangu traditional owners and the tourism industry. Delivered at Yulara, the township at Uluru, it is studied part-time over six months. Students have to reach a required competency level, which helps to give a consistent message and information.
After completing our lap of Uluru, we are driven on to Kata Tjuta, to walk up Walpa Gorge.
The morning is sunny but not hot. The sky is a strong blue. The lit side of the gorge is red, the side in shade has a more muted mood. But these two giant conglomerate-rock walls create a massive V, with the sky beyond.
We are back at Sails in the Desert at 1pm, with everyone full of experience and the stories, I'm sure.
With Margot Vine, from Holidays of Australia's home in Adelaide, and Ann Hope as hosts, everyone spends the rest of the day in their own way. I see some chatting in the lounge bar, some sitting out in the warm sun, others looking round the artworks that local Indigenous artists have for sale on the grass near the Town Square, and another reading in a quiet spot.
The trip has been structured like this — with time for personal adventures or reflection. Whatever our guests' style is.
Next morning, some take off early for the Uluru Base Walk, others work their way through the many free attractions at Yulara, which include a guided walk and explanations in the gardens, and a bush tucker walk. Some listen to a didgeridoo, and learn a little about how it is played. Others are shown through the Gallery of Central Australia.
But, come the evening, most are back together at 5pm to leave for the Sound of Silence Dinner. We are driven in coaches to a short walk up to a lookout platform, for drinks as the sun sets, with a good view of Uluru. There is more live didgeridoo playing, and then we walk down to round tables with white tablecloths, fully set on the red earth of the Red Centre. What a sight. Soup, a barbecue buffet (with kangaroo and barramundi for those who chose it) and desserts fill us in the cooling night. Some enjoy the warmth and flames of the fire pit.
And then an astronomer comes to point out stars, planets and constellations, in an extended moment that would surely make anyone feel small. We so easily fall into believing we're the centre of the universe, rather than just one being living on a rock that is but one grain of sand in it.
On Sunday morning, in the garden of Sails in the Desert, some of us meet to talk phone photography, and learn more about 'the camera in our pocket'. (It's an interstate extension of the PhotoWalks with Phones that colleague Mogens Johansen and I can sometimes offer.)
Things are ending. It is Monday morning, and I breakfast with new friends, as we prepare for the short, direct flight back to Perth.
The NJE team weigh and tag the bags in a room in the hotel — the flight check-in is here rather than at the airport, and when we arrive there, our two coaches are escorted through a gate and onto the tarmac to drive us straight up to our plane.
It's a jolly good way to travel.
But for all the excitement of being in the Red Centre, and seeing Uluru and Kata Tjuta, the direct charter flight and the comforts of Sails in the Deserts, conversations will linger too.
We travel for different reasons, and some people with us have strong reasons for dipping a toe back out in the world. I value the way they have shared and confided.
And I like the way the red earth under our feet seems to have regrounded so many of us.
fact file
+ We have an idea for a slightly different version of the direct charter flight between Perth and Uluru, again in partnership with our friends at Holidays of Australia and the World. If we pull it off, it will be announced first in eTravel, the free digital edition we send by email to inboxes on Wednesdays. Sign up at We just ask for your first and last name and email address, and don't use this for anything else, of course.
+ As the name suggests, Holidays of Australia and the World will help with travel arrangements for global holidays — from their home State of South Australia and other parts of our continent to Mekong cruises, ocean cruises and Europe touring. It is a family-owned business with Australian staff. Look through all they have to offer at and call 1300 854 897.
+ Without our charter flight, options for getting to Uluru include flying via Darwin, Melbourne or Alice Springs, which then means a 445km drive to Yulara (from Alice Springs).
