Australia Day 7 - Uluru and Travel to Melbourne

We missed the sunset last night but Frank and I rose early to catch the sunrise at Uluru.  The earth lightened that morning but the path of the sunlight to Uluru was blocked by a cloud so we missed the supposedly spectacular colors on the rock at sunrise.  Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to come back!  After breakfast the sun was out and we went to Uluru and Frank and I opted to take the half base walk around the rock and we loved it.  It was as beautiful up close as it was striking when you are far away.  The base walk took a little under an hour and then we had a bit of time in their culture and information center. 

After our time in the park we headed to the Yulara Airport and boarded a plane for Sydney where we would take a connecting flight to Melbourne.  The flight to Sydney was uneventful other than the 1 ½ eggplant falafels I ate (Frank didn’t want his, go figure!)  The connecting flight to Melbourne turned out to be the most awesome God ordained part of our trip.  To allow a couple in our tour group to sit together a young Melbournian named Darren switched seats with them and ended up sitting to my right.  We found out later he wasn’t even supposed to be on that flight but rather a later one.  We started talking and found out we were all brothers and sisters in Christ and the conversations just rolled out from there. It was so awesome to feel like you’ve known someone  for years when really you only met them a few minutes ago.  Darren invited us to go out on Sunday with him and his wife and we said we would take him up on it!  By the time we got to the hotel that night it was super late but we were starving so we went for a walk down to the Crown Casino and stopped at an IGA on the way back for some peanut butter, crackers, ice cream, a bottle of wine, and a peach (I tried to be healthy).