Coober Pedy to Uluru

A long drive from Coober Pedy sees us arrive at Uluru campground just around sunset, so there's no point in going out to the rock tonight. Instead we jump on the bikes and try to find a cool beer and some food. Luckily enough the resort has an Outback Bar and BBQ.

As we chain up the bikes and walk up to the bar I hear the lilting country-jazz stylings of Chet Atkins in the air, which though it pleases me seems a bit odd in a tourist place. It turns out that the music is live and guitarist Mal Clarke is working his way through a repretoire of finger pickin classics, including Yankee Doodle Dixie, one of Chet's seminal lessons in fingerstyle guitar.

Whilst I am suitably impressed, the audience however are completely non-plussed and we both feel a bit sorry for the guy.

After a small break he fires into the Aussie classics in an attempt to get a bit of an atmosphere going. Even the bush reggae version of Waltzin' Matilda has little effect, and when he tries to get some audience participation going there's only me and Mandy and maybe 2 other people who give it a go. Mal's face gets grim. After calling everyone a 'bunch of drongos' he takes another break. Then he comes back with some dad-rock classics and finishes to my utter shock with a rendition of Joe Satriani's 'Surfing with the Alien'.
Nice work fella.

Despite Mandy's protestations I don't have the nouse to go and congratulate him on his work, so Mandy does it on my behalf and surprises the man by throwing in the names of Chet and Joe, so his night is slightly improved by this flattery. Much better coming from her than from me I reckon (?).

After a chicken tikka burger with an unfeasibly small piece of chicken in it, and a couple of cold ones we head back to the van.