I will let Rene discuss her time traveling. She is scheduled to take off at 1:20 p.m. Sydney local time on Sunday and will land in Dallas later that day after a 15 hour, 25 minute flight at 1:45 p.m. Dallas local time. Whatever problems you may have with jet lag, dear, just blame it on Texas. And have Rachel help you with a supplemental post about your trip. I'll miss you.
Scot's trip to Uluru
The driver, Ivan Handoko, who took me to the airport drives as a second job to supplement his first job. He is part of a group that is developing an app for Sydney hospitality. He showed me demo. Looks pretty darn cool and it helps that it would be useful. I guess time will tell about that, but I could understand how to navigate it, regardless of the Steve Jobs curse that I occasionally suffer from. Here's the website www.limozine.com.au. Should be up in a couple of weeks. Yes, some may use is instead of a concierge, the staff at the Langham were awesome, which leaves me a little conflicted.
Three hour flight to Alice Springs on Jet Star. More like the airlines back home. Crowbar as many people as you can into an A320 and charge them for every last thing a passenger may want, except use of the toilet. I already miss Qantas and all the unexpected meals and treats.
Back to the headphones for a minute. The compilation Citizen Steely Dan (1972-1980) never sounded so good. I know the music comes from the iTunes Store, but I am giving the Bose headphones all the credit. And thanks to Sally and Craig for introducing us to Trampled Under Foot, Badlands and Wrong Side of the Blues sound great, too. I've listened to the Donald Fagen collection L.R. got me for Christmas, Trampled Under Foot, the 1961 release from John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk all in all, 141 songs and 11 hours, 17 minutes of great music to make the time fly by as we have been flying. To the ghost of Steve Jobs, good job. Maybe he will stop haunting me now.
Rene and I spent all of our time near water, or where it was readily available, if not abundant. Australia is the driest continent in the world and now I am seeing why as we make our way to the desert. As we were flying to Uluru, you could see where the vast oceans were at one time millions of years ago, huge white and gray lands full of salt.
Uluru was given back to the aboriginal people in 1985. The redevelopment has pushed back the small group of hotels from Uluru and relocated the airport as well. Speaking of the airport, you don't want the pilot to overshoot the runway. Otherwise you end up in the desert. Not only will it tear up all kinds of flora and kill whatever fauna can't get out of the way, it would make it really hard for the pilot to make the u-turn he has to make at the end of the runway to go back to the terminal yo just zipped by when you landed. I'm sure (well, not really) that putting the terminal about halfway down the runway makes sense in aviation circles, and I'll have to have that explained to me some time.
As we landed, the pilot reminded us that we had changed time zones and to set out watches back 30 minutes. Whaaaattt? Just when I got pretty confident that I know what day it is....
Checked in to the hotel, and took a walk to see Uluru. I would show it to you if the pictures from my
Google+ that had, up to this time, been working so reasonably well up to this point, to load. I am out of the middle of the Northern Territory, after all.
So, I might have to post those for the Monday post. In the meantime, enjoy some more viv'd Sydney pictures.
Man-made, yes, but the good Awesome.
If you have been reading along, you have heard me go on about the Crux. So, one of the highlights of this trip was going to be the Astro Tour, where one of the locals were going to take a group of us out to look at the stars and hear the stories about the local aboriginal families and their stories.
Was going to be. The guide was kind enough to call and tell me that he thought it would be too cloudy tonight and cancelled the tour. No worries. I'll get ready for my Uluru Walk that starts at 5:45 tomorrow morning. Over to the Gecko's Cafe for a roo burger, and, as I walk out at 8:15, about fifteen minutes after the Astro Tour is to start, I see the most glorious clear sky I have ever seen in my life. The Crux was there and the only clouds in the sky were the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. At least I think that is what they were. Beautiful. Tommy, the binos came in handy tonight.
Doesn't matter. Up early to see the sunrise and all the colors of Uluru.
Cheers!
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