Full Moon in Australia

We are so lucky, we had a full moon in Uluru and another in Port Douglas. (Well, one had to be not quite full but I couldn't tell the difference.)

The one that happened while at Uluru was on the night we had booked a Sky Tour (shout out to Derek Pitt!) a tour of the night sky at the Uluru Observatory. We were worried the moon would make it hard to see the stars. It did and the clouds made it even harder. The official tour was cancelled.

The guide told us when he came to pick us up. I was really disappointed. I asked him to point out the Southern Cross. He was funny. He pointed straight down and said, "The north star is that way," and then pointed towards the sky saying, "The southern cross is that way." When I pressed him he showed us the cross and Jupiter and asked for the refund back. (hehe)

The night before we had watched the sun set from a lookout above the hotel. The moon was so bright and the wind was blowing the clouds so fast that Kris and I decided to go back and check out the sky from there. The path moves away from the lights of the lodge and I couldn't hear any cars or anything except the wind. The day had been so outdoorsey. We had slept in bunk beds, gotten up early for the sunrise, walked Kata Tjuta for three hours, gone to the Cultural Centre, seen the sunset over the Rock, taken showers in a group shower hut and now were outside looking at a movie set moon. It felt like camp. And I felt the same way I felt as a kid when I went camping with my family. There was even a guy playing acoustic guitar! As we walked up the path in the bright moonlight I turned to Kris and said, "We should be getting high." She laughed and said she was thinking the same thing. It just seemed like such an appropriate thing to do, notwithstanding the fact that I have never seen her do it and I haven't smoked since I was a teenager!

When we got to the top I was shocked to see that there was not a single young couple canoodling, no old folks getting high on weed or wine, in fact there was no one there but us! What is wrong with these campers?

We sat and watched the cloud race around, watch the light get stronger and weaker, tried to remember where the southern cross was, tried to remember if Alpha Centuri was the closest galaxy to the ours and other important things. Eventually we had to go to bed because the next day we were getting up early again to watch the sun rise on Uluru.

The full moon in Port Douglas was seen as we raced up a coastal road. More about that later.