Australia The East Bit
Palya! (Hello)
Before I get onto today, let’s step back a day.
As promised here is our “Field of Light – Uluru” Experience
It all started with us getting the coach out to the installation at 5:45pm, including the loop around the resort and a short drive down a dirt road that took about 15mins.
We were lead off the coach up a slight hill overlooking a plain in which the display has been installed.
OK, I may as well get the numbers down all in one hit.
- It covers an area of about 49,000 sq m or about 7 football fields
- It took about 3900 man hours to install on site
- There are 300,000 individual components in the installation, including over 380km of optical fibre.
- It is the first time that this installation has been 100% powered by solar electricity
- There are 50,000 individually crafted light stems in the works
- It all weighs in at over 15 tonnes
It will be at Uluru from 1April 2016 until 31 March 2017.
As we got to the top of the hill we were offered drinks, ranging from bubbles to beer and trays of canapes featuring local ingredients were served. We were given a brief but informative talk about the display just as the sun started to set.
We got to see Uluru in the distance, glowing a magnificent ochre colour at sunset, just as the lights in the installation began to slowly bud into life.
The best way to describe the installation is to say it is like a field of ever changing coloured poppies, with the colour changes sweeping across the vast area dotted with desert oaks and other native trees, whose silhouettes cast an ancient flavour to this surreal experience.
After viewing the spectical from the hill we were allowed to walk down and through the installation along very sensitively lit paths.
For me it had a sense of an extra-terrestrial hand in its creation, with the fibre optic cables giving an alien glow amongst the delicate spheres of ever changing coloured light. A magical experience, by any measure.
Deb and I could both see our youngest grand-daughters dancing through the fields of light with their imaginations running wild with magical mystical adventures with rainbow unicorns leading the way.
This installation was the only reason we revisited Uluru and it is one experience that everyone should see if passing by.
Day 6 Yulara to Barrow Creek 11 July 2016
Our day started with an alarm going off at 5:30am, our alarm clock that is!!!
We were down at breakfast by 6 after putting the last things into the car and making it ready for the drive back to Erldunda and our van.
Breakfast was delicious again, and we managed to pack a few titbits for the drive as well. We were in the car and Deb was driving by 6:40am, a little before sunrise.
We had a good drive back to Erldunda, with me snapping sunrise pics as we drove.
We filled the car with fuel at Erldunda and then drove into the caravan park packed the van up and hitched it up to the car. I then checked the brake cables/wires under the van. There were reports of people going around the Kings Canyon area cutting the electric brake cables just near the wheels!! Kings Canyon is a bit of a drive from where we left our van, but we didn’t want to take any chances.
We got away from Erldunda at 9:30 and headed north to Alice Springs to do a bit of shopping, try to get some bits for the van that have broken (nothing major) and have lunch. I couldn’t get the part I wanted (just for one of the sliding doors inside the van).
We were back on the road again at about 1:40pm and got to Barrow Creek just before 5pm. It’s a small village, population 7, and very rustic, in a Wolfe Creek sort of way (as Deb put it). 🙂
It started to rain not long after we got here so we might have a quick look at the old Telegraph building in the morning.
I have found a few things strange after all the driving we have done, there seems to be a distinct lack of insects out there in the bush! The country side since Marla, has been very green, much greener than the last time we were up here. We have had only 1 large insect hit our windscreen and very few small ones. There is very little road kill on the sides of the road. I have only seen 1 kangaroo in the bush off to the side of the road, and there have been very few cattle near the road. I just hope they aren’t all waiting for us further up the road!
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