After Coober Pedy, I drove up to see Ayers rock and nearly got myself killed. The drive there was uneventful, but while I was in the center at Uluru, a big storm was brewing. when I got outside, it was raining lightly. I drove around the rock, and it was amazing. it was too cloudy for the sunset, but the water pouring off the rock was so beautiful, streams all over the face. I should have realized I might be in for some trouble when I had to drive through two large puddles about 5 inches deep, and maybe 15 feet wide. It didn’t really occur to me; I was so glad to see rain, and so awe-struck by the rock covered in waterfalls.

I was driving back toward Yulara, since I needed to buy some gas. A massive, unbelievable storm cloud was hanging over the town. I was excited, so glad to see the rain, that I didn’t care. I did note that the winding road seemed to be trying to keep me away from the storm; I saw the flashes of lightning, and the land was totally obscured by rain. I knew now this was going to be rough, but my room was in Erldunda, 180 miles east, and I had to be there by 10pm. It was now about 6:30pm.

I drove into the storm, and was blinded by wind and driving rain. the wind must have been about 50-70km/h, and reduced visibility to about 3 yards. I could only see the end of my car, and a bit beyond. I drove into a huge puddle, a river in the road, that was about a meter deep, and nearly killed the engine. The water was brown, and gave me a start. I didn’t get scared, but just had to wonder whether or not I was going to make it any farther. I could barely see. It was dark as night, and I struggled into Yulara at about 10km/h. I parked in a car park, and waited for 30 minutes as sheets of water swept over my car, and the wind shook it to and fro. The parking lot was flooding pretty fast, and had about 6 inches of water in it.

Finally, however, the storm passed to the east. To the west, the sky was orange. It got lighter. I went to the Mobil station, filled up, and headed east, following the storm, to my bed. I found that the streets in Yulara flooded seriously (about 2 feet) in three spots. Back on the Uluru highway, I hit a huge river flowing across the road, 1.5m deep if there was any water in it at all. I could feel the current pushing my car about, hear the engine sputtering, and wondering when the water would make it through the rubber weather stripping on the doors. The rain had already been dripping in between the rubber and the glass of my windows.

This was when I thought, one, I might die, and two, I would have rather had a 4WD. I made it through the flood, and behind me, the sun was shining in low, and made a brilliant rainbow. The road was headed right for it. Up above, I was watching a magnificent fireworks display of lightening; reds and blues, purples, lighting up the sky with warnings. As the sun set finally, the rainbows disappeared, and the clouds beyond were just ink black. I had 200km and 135minutes to get back before I was locked out. Not knowing what the roads were like ahead, but knowing that there were some huge storms looming overhead, I raced off as fast as I dared, trying to go through the heart of the storm and beat it back to the Stuart Hwy. I did run through the storm, getting hit at least five times by downpours and hail storms. I drove through them as fast as I dared, with my speed varying from 40mph to 80. Fortunately, the storm veered northeast, sparing me the worst, and I made it back to the hotel-motel 10 minutes before the gates locked.

As I awoke in my Erldunda backpacker room, the rain had stopped, and the hundreds, no thousands, of smashed bugs and splotches of bird shit had been washed off the front of my car. As I left, I learned from a man in a small 4WD that the Stuart Hwy north had been cut by the rain, but south, there had been little rain, and so off I went for Glendambo, shouting my head off as the land dried. I almost could not believe, after two hours of resigning my self to the all-too real possibility of being swept away in a flashflood, that I was alive.