Day 4

Today we said goodbye to Sydney and journeyed over to Uluru. Where we had the pleasure of seeing Ayers Rock. Apparently, a high percentage (I think our guide threw out 70%) of Australians haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Ayers Rock because it’s so expensive to travel there compared to other destinations.

Getting a couple shots closer to the rock.. The aboriginal people have ask out of respect for them, to not climb the rock. Sadly, many people do. Several get hurt trying. We watched one guy slip and land on his butt while we were there. It’s steeper than people think. Going up is the easy part. It’s coming down that people underestimate. Thankfully, no one in our group climbed it.



Here’s a pic where you can see tiny people climbing. They have a rope going up to hang on because they have had to rescue so many people.

We retreated for the night at Sails in the Desert.


We were told by our tour guides that Oprah stays at the Longitude 131 degrees whenever she visits. From my understanding, it’s like glamping. A hotel room in a tent sort of thing. I put it on my bucket list to stay there sometime when I bring my husband back to visit. Pretty pricey though!
I can’t tell you how fun it was to collect these pins. People were excited to see what the next one was like. Here’s today’s:

Day 5

We started day 5 with a sunrise camel ride. Here’s our group shot.

Here’s my mom and I with our camel. It was fun watching people trying not to fall over when the camels stood up after we got on or getting back into seated position for us to get off. We went on this trip during Australia’s winter so I can’t stress enough how cold this camel ride was. I had two pairs of pants on, two sweaters, two pairs of socks and a jacket. My toes went numb halfway through our ride. I know you feel sorry for me haha. Thankfully, they served hot chocolate and coffee after.

We got a picture afterwards with our awesome guide for the morning.


Selfie!

The colors of the dessert dirt were very vibrant.

I cannot put into words how beautiful this place was so here’s a picture to do it for me.

We also toured the Olgas. They are about 16 miles away from Ayers Rock. There were a lot of aboriginal stories about the rocks. It’s considered a sacred place to them.

Walking up a trail to go inside one of the rocks to see drawings.

Our tour guide told us aboriginal stories about certain aspects of the rocks, shapes, characteristics or the drawings left behind.

We walked a trail to a pool of water and a little water running off the top of the rock.


We followed the trail to the Walpa Gorge. At some parts there’s no walkway, just a bunch of rocky terrain to walk on as you continue to the Gorge. Thankfully, none of us sprained our ankles.

We said goodbye to Uluru and set off for Cairns. The Gold Coast was the part I was looking forward to the most! Warm weather and beautiful beaches!
Disney celebrates your birthday! Here’s a pin I collected for my birthday from them and my travel guides. The guides even got the whole airport to sing Happy Birthday to me. Pretty sure my face was bright red.

We checked into Pullman Palm Cove Sea Temple Resort and Spa.

This is the walkway from the hotel to the beach. You are supposed to watch out for crocodiles. Of course my mom was freaked out so I had to walk first. Mainly, because it was my idea to go see the beach. I kept telling her the first person just notifies the crocodiles that someone’s there and the second person gets it.

My mom and I had an apartment like room. Super spacious that had a good size balcony with patio furniture.



We had dinner at the resort. The dessert was tasty but the rest of my meal, I didn’t really care for. Everyone who got the fish loved their dish but me and a few fellow adventures got the pork chop dish and we all agreed it was not the best.



Pin for this day: