Uluru-view dining under the stars

This item appears on page 77 of the March 2012 issue.

The “Tali Wiru Experience,” a dinner served on an isolated dune with a view of Uluru and the distant Olgas, is offered April 1, 2012, to Jan. 15, 2013, by Ayers Rock Resort in Australia (phone +61 2 8296 8010, fax +61 2 9299 2103, e-mail travel@voyages.com.au). Tali wiru means “beautiful dune” in the Aboriginal language Anangu. For AUS295 (about $313) each, no more than 20 guests are picked up from the resort’s six hotels and taken to Tali Wiru, where they will walk 250 meters on soft sand to the top of the dune. Canapés and champagne are served as the sun sets, followed by a four-course dinner with Australian wines. Didgeridoo music then plays while celestial creation stories are told by a storyteller. It takes four-plus hours. Daily except Tuesday and Thursday. Reservations required. Lodgings at Ayers Rock Resort range in price from $35 per night for a nonpowered site at the Ayers Rock Campground to $732 per night, high season, at the Sails in the Desert Hotel.