My husband Steve is Australian which means I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Australia a number of times over the years and I fell in love with the country the first time he took me back there. We’ve travelled a fair bit throughout Oz, and my favourite experience is the trip we did to Uluru.
Uluru is in Kata Tjuta, which is a large national park in the Northern Territory of Australia. We flew to Alice Springs from Sydney and then Longitude 131 where we stayed, picked us up and drove us to our lodge.
The drive through the desert to the lodge was out of this world amazing. The dark burnt orange colours of the sand and the rock shine against the heat of the bright sun. I still remember the first time we saw Uluru and the feeling I got in my stomach, it was magical, and at that point I knew this trip was going to be life changing.
Now that might sound a little dramatic, but it is true, let me explain. Steve and I have very busy lives, we are your typical city living couple mostly on the go a lot, both worked in the technology industry for years in senior positions therefore we are extremely time poor. Steve actually started his own company nearly 20 years ago now, bringing his software business to Europe 15 years ago-which has grown successfully and now he is taking the business to the states, hence our move to New York. You get the gist, busy couple with high ambitions, who work hard. So, arriving at Uluru takes you back to nature in such a dramatic way it allows you to cut through all noise and work demands you’re dealing with, bringing life to the fore front of what’s important. For those of you who like to get out and about walking in the country you’ll know it’s really good for your health and wellbeing. It’s proven that time spent with nature outdoors reduce stress and anxieties. So this is that on a much larger scale.
I think the other part of the story around Uluru feeling so spiritual for me is the history it has with it’s county. Uluru is home to the indigenous people of Australia, which some years ago was taken off them by the government along with a programme to wipe out the aboriginal people. Some further years later the land was returned to them and an apology was issued from the Australian government. Today the land and park is run by the aboriginal community and is preserved after years of tour guides climbing the rock and literally in years gone by, throwing water on the sacred drawings to help them light up further for tourists to see. So that sense of wrong doing prevails which I think plays to why I felt utter peace and focus only on living and values whilst on our trip to Uluru.
My 2 top favourite experiences were visiting the rock and walking around it. You truly appreciate the scale and size of this magnificent force of nature when you do that and kicking back watching the sunset with a few drinks at our lodge. That night a storm hit and there was lightening which led to such amazing colours in the sky afterwards.
When life gets fast and stressful back in the city, I still think back to our time at Uluru and our experience which helps remind me no matter what comes up in life, you can’t control everything and getting outside with nature allows you to just be. Which is a pretty great feeling!
Thank you to everyone at Longitude 131 for such a fab trip. The service and the stay was brilliant!
Have any of you guys had some trips that you have felt were spiritual? I’d love to hear about them!
