When turning 50, my advice is to face it head on, with gratitude and a sense of celebration.
Which is exactly what I did.
So this second chapter of my digital nomad adventure, was less about digital or nomad and more about a 50th birthday adventure.
As my milestone birthday approached, my long held visions of an overseas trip disappeared….but I wasn’t about to let the stop me sharing a magical experience.
Before I continue, I will say this…..being a sober lady these days, definitely influenced the plan. In the past a winery tour, boozey island break or a party town may (would) have appealed…..that was never on the agenda. Also #covid.
So when the idea of Uluru landed on me it was an easy decision and a hell YES.
It thoroughly delivered - spiritually powerful, awe inspiring, and experience filled.
It was made even more incredible when I discovered my nearest and dearest co adventurers were all Uluru virgins too. Every single one of us experienced it for the first time together.
As the tour organiser I was pretty rubbish and yet, it was perfect. So I’m sharing the specifics, in case you ever take the trip and are looking for actionable inspo.
We stayed at Sails, which is known as the best hotel in the area and it was perfect for us. The rooms sleep up to four (2 queen beds), which made it possible to do the trip economically as well. For four nights, booked well in advance, it came out to $1,100 a room.
Of course there’s also Longitude the upmarket glamping option, which was just not fancy enough for our tastes (kidding would have loved it with my #champagnetaste, but I might have been travelling on my ace!).
Once we had flights and accomodation locked in, the final piece of the puzzle was activities.
I did what any market researcher worth their salt would do and asked my Facebook friends (thanks peeps)! Which gave us a really solid starting point for the must do’s and broader wish list.
Then I worked on my birthday date itself first. Because of course that was priority one. Just on that, waking up in the middle of an awesome experience on your 50th is quite a good distraction from the telling yourself you’re old sort of mind games!
The Sounds of Silence dinner stood out, although I was nervous about a 100 person dinner and 14 people getting split up. So I also booked a suite at the hotel for the night. Then I hosted a private ‘pre party’ for a couple of hours before dinner (+$1100 in accommodation - and worth it!).
Dinner was my treat, because GRATITUDE and it was truly fabulous. If you’re heading to Uluru do NOT miss this experience. The sunset was breath taking, the service and food top notch AND they were so accomodating, that they literally created us a giant table (two tables joined) and we were all together.
The highlight of my entire trip was the beautiful surprise birthday ceremony. My gorgeous friends and family read from a book they’d created for me. Each guest selected the word that best suited me in their eyes and wrote about why. They went around the table and read them out. It was incredibly special, heart filled and emotional. I am a lucky gal indeed.
Beyond that, when I went through the must do list I realised it was going to be expensive for my loved ones. So I did a bit of looking into how to bring the price down. And here it is……rent a car (in our case 2 x mini busses), and buy a 3 day park pass ($38).
In addition to our wheels, I listed out the highlight tours and everyone then chose the ones they were really keen for…..along with being able to visit the park each day. This was such a fantastic approach and gave us a tonne of freedom as well as being more affordable.
The tours we chose:
Sounds of Silence (see above) $298 per person
Helicopter tour of Uluru and Kata Tjuata at sunset (LOVED), this was $330 for 36 mins
Camel riding at sunrise, $139 each
Fields of Light sunset, $44
The other thing we did on my birthday morning was hire push bikes and ride around the base Uluru. We self drove into the park and the bikes were $50 for 3 hours. Which meant we were all together, on our our time, soaking it up. Soooooo good.
Also on the birthday day, I had a Zoom with friends from all over (NY, Dallas, Chicago, Sydney). AMAZING. Delivered live from poolside at Sails in the Desert!
Now back to my Uluru report.
It’s worth noting - there’s little in the way of restaurants on offer, we mostly ate at the hotel buffet (I mean over ate). Or had bad food (I mean bar food) in the hotel. You can also shop for basics at the IGA.
Honestly, everything we did was amazing. I LOVED IT ALL!
When it came to the park itself, I would say that the Valley of the Winds walk was up there as a favourite, although the bike riding around the rock was incredible too.
I also appreciated the daily schedule of sunrise + sunset activity. Feasting at the buffet. Laying by the pool for hours on end. Sunset activities. And more feasting. My kind of living and it reminded me of Safari in South Africa. Yep, that’s a big call.
We were warned about the flies and they are rampant. Sticking to sunrise and sunset in the Park was a great strategy…. for the views and the fact the flies don’t like the cold! Sunning myself covered in flies is not my favourite activity, but I managed.
We got back to Sydney on Saturday afternoon and my next move was hosting breakfast for 40 on Sunday morning. Because as the big 5-0 got closer I wanted to see more of the beautiful faces of the people in my life who I’m so grateful for. We dined at Pasteur over looking Balmoral beach, there was lots of love and hugs and I’m so happy that I keep the festival going.
Because right after that, it was time to hit the road. Yes I’m being literal. Two hours after breakfast I was in the car, with my right hand girl (Chilli Sparkles) driving North.
Next stop tent life!
