After sleeping the night underground in Coober Pedy, we got on the bus for a long day of driving up to the Northern Territory with Yulara (Uluru) being our final stop. We arrived in time to catch the sunset (probably one of my favourite ones so far) from our campsite to enjoy the views of both rocks (Uluru and Kata Tjuta), play some cards, and hang out at our campsite.
Before bed, we got a lesson on how to sleep in a swag (another one of my anxieties before I even booked this tour), which is basically a canvas sleeping bag. Of course we all had our hesitations – sleeping outside with nothing but a sleeping bag protecting us from the deadly things that creep and crawl around at night in Australia was not very comforting. Josh addressed our concerns and tried to ease our anxieties by assuring us that no one in all of his years of sleeping in swags had ever been bitten or disturbed by any bugs, snakes, or other animals (apparently there had been the odd sniffing by Dingoes, but nothing ‘harmless’ – I’ve started to realize the Australian definition of ‘harmless’ is very different than the rest of the world!)…we may have jinxed it when I mentioned, ‘there is always a first time for everything’ and the girl who ended up in the hospital later in the evening said, ‘Mat had never lost anyone in the Grampians either until our group came around’. We all laid out our swags in a circle and looked up in awe at the view of the sky, being lucky enough to catch a few shooting stars to wish on before calling it a night. We were confident at this point we would make it to morning alive, and most of us were lying on top of the swags because crawling inside them was too hot.
After checking out the stars of the Southern Hemisphere, I rolled over and shut my eyes to attempt to get some sleep out in spider and snake territory! I was thinking to myself how far I’ve come since my first camping adventure in Australia – I went from not closing my eyes inside a sealed tent, to sleeping out in the open of the Australian Outback. And just as I was smiling to myself thinking of the adventures I’ve had while I’ve been here, it happened…
A terrifying scream from one of the other girls a few swags down made my heart start beating a million miles a minute. Having gotten to know how dramatic our group could be, I was expecting this to be a similar situation, but it became clear very quickly that this was not one of those moments where someone was just trying to freak the rest of the group out by being dramatic. She had two clear bite marks on her ankle and was in enough pain to make the tough girl cry – it was time to search for our guide and hope he had more knowledge about bites in Australia than the rest of us did. After finding him sleeping on top of our trailer, scaring the crap out of him (which in turn scared me) by waking him up, we started our investigation/nursing roles to figure out what to do. Being the daughter of a nurse, I grew up with the knowledge of how to responsibly mix medication with the maximum benefit, so I started pulling out whatever I had…Gravol, Benadryl, Ibuprofen, Tylenol…you name it, she got it! We attempted to keep the swelling down with ice packs, Josh used trustworthy Google to try and diagnose what type of bite it was (first guess was a centipede bite), and we tried to keep the mood light with some Canadian sarcasm (the girl who was bitten is also an awesome Canadian so was able to laugh a little about the situation she was in). As time passed, the swelling and redness got worse and the pain was becoming unbearable, so it was time to call a nurse and see what to do. She suggested going to Emerg, which was a bit worrisome considering we were in the middle of nowhere and didn’t know where the closest hospital would be. As this call was ending, a few of the other girls had gone back out to the swags to grab the bitten girl’s phone, and while doing so, spotted a scorpion beside her swag. This is when panic set in a little more, and although Josh was awesome at keeping his cool, it was obvious he was a bit more panicked now too. Another couple of calls to people in the medical field resulted in Josh, Mallory and I on the bus on our way to the hospital.
A terrifying scream from one of the other girls a few swags down made my heart start beating a million miles a minute. Having gotten to know how dramatic our group could be, I was expecting this to be a similar situation, but it became clear very quickly that this was not one of those moments where someone was just trying to freak the rest of the group out by being dramatic. She had two clear bite marks on her ankle and was in enough pain to make the tough girl cry – it was time to search for our guide and hope he had more knowledge about bites in Australia than the rest of us did. After finding him sleeping on top of our trailer, scaring the crap out of him (which in turn scared me) by waking him up, we started our investigation/nursing roles to figure out what to do. Being the daughter of a nurse, I grew up with the knowledge of how to responsibly mix medication with the maximum benefit, so I started pulling out whatever I had…Gravol, Benadryl, Ibuprofen, Tylenol…you name it, she got it! We attempted to keep the swelling down with ice packs, Josh used trustworthy Google to try and diagnose what type of bite it was (first guess was a centipede bite), and we tried to keep the mood light with some Canadian sarcasm (the girl who was bitten is also an awesome Canadian so was able to laugh a little about the situation she was in). As time passed, the swelling and redness got worse and the pain was becoming unbearable, so it was time to call a nurse and see what to do. She suggested going to Emerg, which was a bit worrisome considering we were in the middle of nowhere and didn’t know where the closest hospital would be. As this call was ending, a few of the other girls had gone back out to the swags to grab the bitten girl’s phone, and while doing so, spotted a scorpion beside her swag. This is when panic set in a little more, and although Josh was awesome at keeping his cool, it was obvious he was a bit more panicked now too. Another couple of calls to people in the medical field resulted in Josh, Mallory and I on the bus on our way to the hospital.
We arrived to the small and deserted building within the camping resort we were staying in, pulled into the ‘ambulance zone’ – the only place to pull into in front of the hospital – and waited for the doctor to arrive. The arrogant man pulled in after us, flashing his lights at Josh and lecturing him about where he chose to drop us off, and unlocked the hospital to start his $363/hour job. The cockroaches all started to run around the floor, and I was instantly glad ‘all’ we were dealing with was a bite and not something requiring surgery or any kind of treatment where sterilization was essential to survival. The doctor kicked Josh and I out for ‘confidentiality reasons’, but mainly just because he was a prick, and after about an hour, Mallory had a few codeine in her hands and we were back on the bus heading back to camp. It was now 2 am, and with our alarms set to wake us up at 4:15 to make it to Uluru in time for the sunrise, it wasn’t looking like we were going to get much sleep. With our only option to get back in our swags to catch a few Z’s, it was likely Mallory and I would not fall asleep. I set her up on the kitchen table with hers and watched over her like she was my own kid, preparing hot and cold packs for her to alternate placing on her bite to help keep swelling down. At about 3:30, I got on the bus and attempted to get at least a few minutes of sleep without a whole lot of success.
4:15 AM came way too quickly, and we were on our way to Uluru. After an eventful evening, we made it in time to see the sun rise over Uluru, the big red (spoiler alert: it’s actually a grey rock that has turned red from rusting of iron in the rock) iconic rock that Australia is known for. It became clear why this is such a sacred place for the Aboriginal people of the area – it is hard to explain the feeling you get as you watch the sun come up on the rock, but it is quite peaceful and powerful at the same time. Yes, it is ‘just a rock’ to us, but as we continued to explore the history of the rock throughout the day, the hike around the bottom of it and stories from Josh about its significance slowly brought life and meaning to this rock. As much as we all joked about how many photos we took of ‘some rock’, the feeling you get while there is indescribable unless you have been there to experience it for yourself. So yes, I took more photos of this rock than I ever have or will ever take of another rock again in my lifetime, but it was well worth the visit and is definitely another moment for the memory book.
After exploring Uluru, we made our way back to the campsite where Josh kindly put up two huge tents for us to sleep in for the evening (he knew none of us were about to climb back into a swag after the previous evening’s events), some of us headed into the little resort village, and we then headed back out to Uluru for sunset photos (we tried to get creative since we already had 100s of pictures of the rock) enjoyed with strawberries and champagne which left us feeling fine on the bus back to our campsite to complete an exhausting, yet enjoyable day at this sacred sight.
The next morning was another early wake-up to catch the sunrise in a different location – this time closer to Kata Tjuta, the other big red rock that is also sacred to the Aboriginals (I still don’t quite known why Uluru is the one that everyone has come to know – Kata Tjuta is just as impressive and big, if not even more interesting to look at). With more pictures of the rocks on our cameras, we ate breakfast amongst the millions of flies and set out to hike amongst Kata Tjuta. When you’re amongst the rock and climbing it to see the beautiful view, you forget you are in the middle of the desert with nothing but flat and lifeless land around you (and a couple of big rocks). With our hike complete and lots of Aboriginal history learned, we packed up our camp and left Yulara behind with nothing but memories of scorpion bites, one swollen ankle, some very red and dirty feet, a few flies swallowed, and 100s of photos of big red rocks.