Yulara to Sydney

We take a dawn camel ride. The shuttle picks us up in darkness and we go just a few K to the camels. It’s really fun. We learn a bit about camels, and are assigned to “Clancy;” a gentle, medium sized beast. The 45 minute walk actually takes us out on a trail and we feel, for the first time, what it might have felt like to be in this part of the world before buses and asphalt.

We get back to the hotel and have some time, so we take our first unescorted walk in the Red Center. It’s just down the way from the hotel, but fun. The desert sand is very red, and quite fine. We get to touch the prickly spinefex grass and imagine we are wandering alone.

We fly from Uluru to Sydney. The queue to check our luggage is fairly long, but it moves. We think we have time for a bite and a beer when we arrive at our gate, but we don’t. We buy the beer and end up chugging half in the queue to board. The flight is uneventful. We are amazed to see our luggage come off the belt in Sydney airport first, and all together. We think we will get out of the airport and to our hotel promptly. Silly us. Our shuttle driver, who is supposed to be standing their holding a card with our name on it, is missing. I finally call the shuttle operator and he tells me the shuttle is “almost there.” We wait some more. The shuttle eventually comes. As we leave the airport building I look back and observe that we are the last people from our flight to leave the airport.