Ayres Rock - Uluru.

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Up before dawn today, normally hard for me, but since my body has NO idea what time it is, not so bad.  Bus to Uluru and then a wait until the sun rose.  A little longer wait for the sun to clear the clouds near the horizon.  Possibly a less dramatic and less red result since the angle of refraction was higher than it should have been, but a lovely sight in any case.   They have had so much more rain than usual this year that the desert, often called the Red Centre here, is green and gorgeous.  The dark trees and shrubs, the red earth, the pale gold of the grasses blowing in the strong wind, and then the mammoth rock rising in the distance.

Uluru in the light but before the sun struck it. 

Waiting for sunrise, with Kata Tjuta in the distance, both easily visible but neither touched with the sun yet.

This was the problem--that low-lying cloud bank the sun had to clear.

From our vantage point, Kata Tjuta began to glow first.

And here is Uluru, at last touched by the rising sun.