Uluru

Hmmmmm…Uluru. Ryan had been here before, but I have to say that I was not really looking forward to it that much – expecting it to be overcome by tourists. This turned out to be true, but once I got my first proper look at both Uluru and Kata Tjuta rising out of the desert, I was sold. Incidentally – Mount Connor, which was closer back to Curtin springs, was also quite an amazing site (never even heard of it before).

We had been debating whether or not to climb Uluru – in the end our decision was made for us with the climb being closed due to forecast rain. We were both hoping it would actually rain – expecting it to be quite a unique way to see the Rock (never happened though). So we ended up doing the base walk and then spending some time in the cultural centre. The base walk was pretty interesting – lost of big boulders and caves (some with paintings) and a few gorges containing pools of water. The crowds thinned out once we got a bit of distance between us and the parking lot, although we were never alone. There were plenty of fences and signs (marking sacred sites and requesting visitors not to take photographs), and a large part of the walk was a long way out from the base of the rock (Ryan says parts of it were further out than when he did it 4yrs ago), but overall it was still a worthwhile effort. We also managed to see a herd of camels in the distance (we were wondering what all the cars were stopping and gawking at).

We had lunch in the cultural centre and a pitstop in Yulara (the resort town – which had internet reception so we could finally put some more posts online), then headed back out of the park to camp for the night.

We ended up nestled amongst the dunes behind a roadside rest area (along with a dozen other people). Climbing the nearest dune gave us our own personal view of both Uluru and Kata Tjuta, where we watched the sunset (probably wasn’t quite as spectacular as the tourist spot, but pretty special anyway). The desert night also gave us the most impressive starshow we had seen so far on our trip, which we enjoyed for ages after the fire had burned down to coals (this is my favourite part of camping).