The ‘Desert Awakenings’ Tour is another Voyages special (Uluru-based, Aboriginal owned and partially operated). The premise is that you are collected at 5am – I typed that correctly (!) – and shipped out into the desert to watch the sun rise over Uluru, while being served a range of breakfast foods and beverages to while away the time.
It was pitch black when we were picked up in a very weird ATV (I think that stands for All Terrain Vehicle), which was like a mini-bus on stilts (picture is in Part 2 of this post). Everyone was pretty chirpy – mainly an older crowd who would have been up early anyway!
The flies were just starting to stir and hadn’t spotted all of the fruit yet, but they had some early risers too! Breakfast was fruit, Danish pastries, croissants and about an hour in (yes, you are there for a loooong time), freshly baked rolls filled with fried eggs and bacon.
We were all stuffed.
When dawn came, it crept in slowly at first…
Then started to come through in a rush!
What the brochure fails to mention is that dawn happens away to the left of Uluru (because of the position of our sand dune breakfast spot). This is still lovely, but not what was paid for (and which cost a lot!).
Our cameras failed to capture the beauty of being there, but I gave it a good go on my basic Nikon 3400!
The blue starts to emerge.
And the clouds turn to silver streaks across the sky.
I wore orange (for dawn) (or because it was my last clean tee-shirt) and managed to look entirely uncomfortable and grumpy in this bush near Uluru.
This tour was MUCH longer than this part alone, but it’d be too much for one post, so keep an eye out for Part 2!
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