We returned to the Heavitree Gap Resort to wait out the week.
On Sunday we visited the Chateau Hornsby Winery, the only winery in the Northern Territory. They advertise lunch and jazz on Sundays but we were disappointed as this wasn't to be. The wine tasting was, on the other hand, unexpectedly good. We found it difficult to choose what we were going to buy. The most unusual wine was the new millennium sparkling red. The grapes are picked early on 1st January and are used to make a wine which I guess it would be called Beaujolais if it were French which is served chilled and is most suitable with a light alfresco lunch.
On Thursday, we noticed a group of Aboriginals beside the road in the Gap, preparing a smoke ceremony. It eventually dawned on us that the body of Charles Perkins, long time Aboriginal activist, first Aboriginal graduate of an Australian University, and one time Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs, was to be returned to the Bungalow at Alice Springs, the place of his birth. We walked across the Todd River to the Stuart Highway to join a fairly large number of people from all three waves of Australian immigration to pay our last respects to him.
On Friday, we visited the clinic at the hospital. As no further symptoms had appeared and as the scan was clear, they asked that we arrange for some further tests within a month.
We decided to head back to Brisbane with all expedition but to visit Uluru by air before leaving Alice Springs.
Up at sparrowfart on Saturday morning to fly to Yulara in a Piper Cherokee.
On the way we flew over all the places we had seen on our trip into the West McDonnells, Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm, Ormiston Gorge and Glen Helen. The view from the air enables one to make sense of the topography and to appreciate the complexity of the landscape.
We had to skirt round a thunder storm which the pilot told us was typical for Alice Springs at this time of year. When you are looking out the window at lightning at eye level and realise that the pilot is flying VFR and must stay within sight of the ground, you begin to wonder if this was such a good idea.
The weather cleared and we flew over Gosse Bluff which is an ancient meteorite impact crater and really only visible from the air.
On to Kings Canyon which from the air is a great slab of rust coloured sandstone with a couple of deep notches in it. The wind over the Canyon gets pretty turbulent and doing a low level circuit in a little plane is good exercise for the sphincter muscles.
Lake Amadeus is usually empty but the rain earlier in the year are still evident. To the south on gets a view of Mount Connor, Uluru and Kata Tjuta in the distance. The airspace around the Rock is restricted so we fly along the northern side and back before landing at Yulara airport.
Part of the deal was for the pilot to hire a car and drive us to Uluru.
The Cultural Centre has some marvellous displays intend to give non-aboriginals some kind of understanding of Aboriginal culture. It would be possible to spend a whole day there but we didn't have that luxury.
We drove round the Rock, took one of the shorter walks along its edge, got a little wet as it started to rain. The rain was extremely heavy and as we watched the water started streaming down the Rock. We drove right round once again seeing a whole new set of sights.
It is not possible for a mere black-hander (engineer) to describe the Rock in any way which would convey the impressions and feelings evoked by being there. Photos of the Rock convey some idea of its size, its shape, its colour, and its isolation but nothing of its nature. I'll say no more and include no pictures but would exhort everyone to visit it for themselves; I believe it will be worth every bit of the effort.
On the way back to Alice Springs, the flight plan was to take off between rain storms and try to avoid the bad weather.
We had headsets in the plane so we heard all the radio traffic. On getting the local weather from the tower, on pilot commented that at 15 degrees and raining it was "just like Melbourne" .
As we approached Alice Springs we listened as the tower tried to get a couple of airliners in under the weather. One report was " There's lightning all along the ILS track, better not come in that way". And again, "Theres a big band of pink stuff from Maryvale out to the northwest travelling from southwest to northeast.
We hung about south of the Alice while all this was going on and were eventually called in to land in comparatively clear weather. Jean confessed afterwards to thoughts of impending disaster but she said she realised that the pilot had a lot riding on a successful landing, in particular, his own life.