Disappointing Sunrise over the rock, lucky I stayed in bed!!!!!

Sun rise at Yulara

Andrew and Courtney cooking up a bit of Kangaroo, Emu, Crocodile and

Prawns!!!!

At the Olgas

At the Olgas

We left Coober Pedy on Thurday and just had a night stopover at Erldunder (really just an overnight park) The distances between real towns now are too great to travel in one day and we are in no mood to push ourselves. Our only mood right now is fairly laid back!!! On that night we had the biggest electrical storm I have experianced, we thought the van was going to explode, I've never seen that much water come out of the sky in such a short space of time. Anyway we survived and arrived at Ayres Rock resort on Friday afternoon. This place has become very commercialized since we visited 13 years ago. Yalara is the actual town and while the shops are better (like a resort) it has become very expensive ( $30 for 4 stubbies takeaway) . Resaurants seem very nice but don't welcome kids that much so we have been going to a DIY BBQ Restaurant, you can cook all the outback meats there. We went to Sunrise over the rock and I can see that years ago it was a great experiance to watch the rock changing in the quiet morning desert, but now with all the helicopter tours Sunrise reminded me more of something out of "Apocalypse Now"! That's the new world of Tourism I suppose. The Rock is a lot more guarded than last visit. You can't see all of it as easily now and some areas are off limits to the public now, a bit of a shame but I guess they also have to protect it from us too. Have had a great tour with an Aboriginal woman Sarah ( didn't know that was an Aboriginal name ?) but she was very good as her ansestors were from the Rock. She had to be interpreted , by a Japanese woman of all thing! But the Tours do teach you a lot more about the areas than you could hope to reserch yourself and the whole trip is becoming quite an education and that is good for the girls and they are showing a keen and real interest in most of it. Well ,onto Kings Canyon tomorrow (Tuesday 3rd) We have read it is not to be missed for it's scenic beauty but it is awfully expensive. We will keep you posted there.