Flowers in the desert

[skyring]

Sailflowers,
originally uploaded by skyring.

We turn a corner, and there is the Rock, quite a long way away actually, but it somehow fills the windscreen. Cameras click and chirp all over the bus. Mine included.

Only a short ride to the Yulara resort, with accommodation options ranging from campground to luxury hotel, and the bus driver fills it up with good advice about drinking plenty of water, wearing protective clothing, and putting on sunscreen and insect repellent.

The flies are plentiful in the summer, he says, and face veils are available for a few dollars apiece. I’ve read some very caustic online comments about the flies, and I was half expecting to be immediately covered with a thin black layer of insects upon arrival.

The flies are an irritant, to be sure, and they don’t disappear until the sun sets or the first frost of winter, but I soon find that a bit of insect repellent and the good old Great Aussie Salute is sufficient. None of the staff are wearing the veils, I notice.

The landscape, Ayers Rock aside, is quite alien. The soil is red sand - the bright rusty-orange ochre of the Australian desert. Here it is mostly covered with small grassy bushes, low to the ground, some skinny trees with pale green leaves, and larger trees that look hard and ancient. No wildlife visible - everything seeks shade and shelter during the day.

Ten minutes got us from the airport to the resort complex. When the old airfield, campground and motel were closed down last century, several different firms built and operated hotels in competition with each other at the Yulara site, which is actually quite some way from the Rock, outside the designated park.

Eventually one firm, Voyages (which also operates resorts around Australia such as Dunk Island in Queensland or El Questro in Western Australia) gained control of the whole resort site and now operates it as a monopoly. I was wondering what effect this would have on prices, but so far I couldn’t complain about the bus ride.

We pull up outside Sails in the Desert, which is the high end of the accommodation range here. Billed as five star, but again, several online reviews give a far lower rating. Only a handful of guests alight here, and the remainder, headed for the bottom end campground and tourist lodge options, stare enviously after us from the bus windows.

We are approached by porters, who offer to vanish our luggage and reappear it in our rooms. I surrender my big yellow bag to them, but Kerri keeps her rollaboard. How she manages to travel with hand luggage alone is a mystery to me.

There’s a souvenir gallery at the entrance, prices ranging up to several thousand dollars, but it looks well-stocked and wonderful, and I make a note to return for a closer examination.

Check in is well-staffed. As it happens, we get the young lady behind the “Japanese check in” sign, and an odd thing happens. The manager appears as soon as we give our names, introduces himself - “Hi, I’m Doug” - and makes a few comments about the Qantas travelwriting competition for which this trip was a prize. One of the conditions is that I have to submit a 500 word story for publication on the Qantas site, and I suspect that the manager wants to smooth over any difficulties.

While I am very glad to meet him and to chat about the resort, he really needn’t worry. For a professional article, I’m not going to mention anything negative unless it’s a major and longstanding flaw. Stuff like poor room service or a dirty swimming pool could be a one-off and long corrected by the time my article is published and readers turn up (or not) in response.

So far, I’m impressed. We move outside the spacious lobby - I notice a stack of free newspapers, Wall Street Journal among them, by some comfy looking couches - and the middle of the hotel is taken up by a sheltered courtyard about the size of a football field or two. There is a grove of pure white ghost gums, a generous expanse of lush green lawn, a big blue swimming pool, and everywhere there are bushes, flowers and planter tubs.

“It’s all local vegetation,” Doug explains. Sourced from sheltered valleys and riverbeds rather than the open desert just outside, but it’s a peaceful place to rest the eyes. The triangular white shade sails that give the hotel its name are strung from masts, an intriguing series of shapes that block the bright sun.

We are led into the Red Ochre Spa. Part of the prize package involves hour long treatments here, and we selected from a wide range of treatments, each of them sounding more pleasant than the last. Kerri has opted for the deep tissue muscle massage, and I’ve selected the “Total Wellbeing Experience”, which is based on foot and back treatments. We meet the staff, confirm our appointments, and the manager leads off to our room.

There’s a moment’s hitch with the key. It’s an actual metal door key, not one of those swipe cards. “The sand outside is full of iron,” we are told, “and it ruins the magnetic codes.”

We’ve been upgraded to a spa room, which turns out to be a huge room for a hotel, with as much space again outside on a deck/balcony offering a splendid view out over the courtyard. The spa area can be screened off by shutters, should we wish to jaunt in the jacuzzi.

King-size bed, enough seating for a football team, mini-bar fridge full of reasonably priced goodies, bathroom stocked with fragrant oils and lotions. This all looks very comfortable indeed, and we sink down gratefully into the chairs. There’s no noisy airconditioner. Instead chilled water is pumped through the walls, keeping everything bearable. From the few minutes we’ve spent outside in the high noon, we can judge the room temperature to be... perfect.

A knock on the door before we fall asleep, and it’s the porter with my duffle bag. Perhaps he’s more used to hauling crocodile-skin valises about, but my big yellow LL Bean rolling duffle has been around the world five times now, veteran of a hundred airliner holds and baggage carousels, and I wouldn’t leave home without it.

I’ve packed a change or two of clothing, a broad-brimmed army slouch hat complete with puggaree, some hiking boots, a jumper against the chill of evening, a tripod and a few books, including the Lonely Planet guides to travel writing and photography. Paul Theroux for inspiration, if I need it.