Uluru

So, yes. We saw The Rock.  It is a big rock. We weren't sure about it at first. It is the epitome of Australia. It is the Grand Canyon and the Eiffel Tower and Stonehenge rolled into one glowingly lonely red sandstone block. But we thought, "we're from Utah--how can cool can a chunk of sandstone really be compared to Zion, Bryce, or Goblin Valley?"

Sure enough, at first, it was just fun to finally be there, along with every other tourist from every other country on Earth. (And possibly a few tourists not from Earth--see Wycliffe Well entry below.)  Sarah sang, Sarah danced, and we were (sort of) entranced. . . .

Who knows why, but we came back the next afternoon in the rain. Oh ho! Rain means waterfalls, racing clouds, spots of rare sunlight limning sandstone grooves in gold and bare eucalyptus trees in angelic haloes. 

Rain in the desert, after all, is a rare treat. And in the end, we serendipitously (of course) caught one of the most amazing sunset spectaculars Uluru affords--clouds like a magician's floating tablecloths on the summit, prisms of broken rainbows tumbling off the sharper corners, and then that weird, solitary, middle of the darkening twilight red, red, red glow of the rock itself and nothing else.

P.S. One last thing about Uluru, or Ayer's Rock.  Maybe the most Australian aspect of this most Australian place is a bizarre and glaring contradiction. First, there's a sign at the base placed by local Aboriginal custodians, asking people to please not climb the rock:

Right next to that sign is a schedule of climbing times. Right above the sign, the climbing path still rises straight up the rock in a footworn scar. When we pointed out this weirdness of "please don't climb" and "here are the climbing schedules" to a typically gregarious and charming couple from Oz who were watching the sunset spectacle with us, they said: "That's Australia for you." Indeed.