Our flight swiftly descended into Ayres Rock airport after a good 3h trip. When the plane starts preparing its descend, one can see in the horizon the unmistakable silhouette of Uluru. No matter how many times you may have seen it on postcards, nothing prepares you for the burnished grandeur of the Rock as it appears in the horizon.
With its remote desert location in the heart of Australia, deep cultural significance and spectacular natural beauty, Uluru is a pilgrimage well worth the many hundreds (or thousands depending on where you come from) it takes to arrive there. Along with Uluru, the equally beautiful Kata Tjuta (Olgas) offers mystical walks of unspeakable beauty. Both sites marveled us with their astonishingly beautiful and silent sunrises and sunsets. This place is the spiritual cradle of aboriginal Australia. We learned a great deal about the aborigines customers, culture and history and in particular the significance of Uluru and its sister rock system to their lives.
Valen and Carlos were absolute troopers, withstanding our challenging schedules (wake up at 530am to get to sunrise, do some trekking, move around in the desert to get to the sunrise, etc), with an absolute smile.
We particularly enjoyed a memorable walk along the wind valley at Kata Tjuta. Carlos engaged in full detail with Laura on the characters of the Lion King, depicting with very vivid and energetic characterization the nuts and bolts of the storyline. He is really charismatic and energetic and used all his super powers in his discussions, surrounded by overwhelming natural surroundings. When we arrived home at night, he chased Laura with tons of charm, patience and smiles to persuade her to watch the movie with her.
Carlos’ arguments:
– mom, I am Simba and you are Nala
– roar, I just can’t wait to be king….
– akuna matata, it is problem free, elosophy (as opposed to philosophy which he refuses to accept)
– mom, come, this is awesome…
Valen continued with me and we completed a 7km trek way deeper into the wind valley through relatively challenging routes. We had an amazing and really unforgettable conversation. Valen shared some of his ‘lessons’, some of which I will describe henceforth. When I asked him where he gets these things from, he just says, ‘I don’t know, from my head’ – I wish to think that many of these snippets of life wisdom come from us and others from his natural environment, including Oak Knoll and his friends in the many places he has been to.
Some of Valen’s pearls of wisdom:
– remember daddy, if we behave well, ‘kids are kids’ and if we misbehave, ‘kids are just kids’
– never give up, be brave and just keep going….
– I want to undertake an impossible challenge – I want to build a time machine
– ‘daddy, do you know that a black hole is a time machine?’
– ‘dad, do you know that zero and infinity are twins?’
– if you dream big, your life will be big
– don’t worry, even if we are lost, we are still exploring….
– do or do not, try does not exist (paraphrasing Yoda)
Alas, we stayed at Ayres Rock Resort where we tasted for our first time a yummy kangaroo burger or an outback pizza, sprinkled with kangaroo meet and emu slices among other local delicacies – for the uninitiated, an emu is similar to an Australian ostrich.
We decided to head towards our next destination from Alice Springs, experiencing driving in the outback, so we took the car and flew for 6h across 500km in the middle of the torrid sun and windy and chilly desert towards Alice Springs with the hope to see hoards of kangaroos and other exotic animals….we saw…..none, but it was our outback experience nonetheless!!!!!
Next chapter – Great Barrier Reef!
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemingway
― Ernest Hemingway