Adventures at Uluru and Kata Tjuta

OK, time to back things up a bit.

Due to the ridiculous cost of internet access at Uluru and Kings Canyon (Wartarrka), I've missed out reporting the most important parts of my Red Centre adventures. So now that I'm back in Melbourne and have free internet, I can get caught up!

I spent a good chunk of today editing and uploading photos from my adventures. Here are the links:

Cairns - my travels with my parents to the Great Barrier Reef, Kuranda and Daintree
Northern Territory - Part One - pictures from Darwin and Alice Springs
Northern Territory - Part Two - pictures from Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Watarrka
Coober Pedy - photos from - of all places - Coober Pedy

So... back on Tuesday, March 25th, Mom, Dad, Jen and I headed out from Alice Springs to drive to Uluru. It's about a 5 hour drive (going 130km/h most of the way) through flat, flat desert, mulga scrub, and brilliant red sand dunes. There is absolutely nothing on the roads between the roadhouses. I mean, intellectually I know that the land on either side of the highway belongs to one cattle station or another, but the stations are so incredibly huge that you only rarely pass fence lines, and you never see any houses or other signs of human life. It was always a shock to pull into a road house and see other cars - 'cause it wasn't like we were passing any on the road!

After we'd turned off the Stuart Highway at the Lasseter Highway and were on the last 250-km stretch to Uluru, I was paying pretty close attention to the scenery, hoping for that first glimpse of the rock. Then, way off in the distance, we all simultaneously spotted a huge... something... off in the distance. Dad thought it was Uluru, but it didn't look right to me. It looked more like a mesa than the famous photos of Uluru that I've seen. Turns out I was right - it wasn't Uluru at all, but another landmark called Mount Connor. There was even a lookout just off the highway, so we pulled over and snapped a few photos.

Continuing on our way, I know we were all getting anxious to spot Uluru and for the drive to end. Mom, Dad and I had driven over 2000kms in the past four days and were rather tired of sitting in the car. The boring road also held its surprises - at one point when I was driving, a huge perentie lizard crossed the road - taking its own sweet time - and I almost hit it! Perenties are the largest of the goanna lizards found in Australia, and the one we saw was probably almost 5 feet long! Yikes! Not the sort of critter you want to run over. We saw numerous other lizards on the road too, including smaller goannas and thorny devils.

Finally, as we rounded one of the few bends in the road, we spotted first Uluru (Ayers Rock) and then Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) off in the distance. They really were striking, even from so far away. The land around these formations is so flat that the huge rocks seem somehow like they don't belong, like they float over top of the vegetation. Even after we'd spotted them, it seemed to take us a long time to get close.

First we pulled in at the Ayers Rock resort, where everyone coming to view Uluru has to stay. The resort has all sorts of different types of accommodations, everything from campgrounds to five star hotel rooms. We were staying at the hostel. We had a bit of a hard time checking in - for whatever reason, the resort had no record of the booking Jen had done online. But she got it all sorted out and finally headed off to our room. This turned out to be a "family" room with two bunk beds, its own bathroom and fridge, which was nice. However, the cobblestone walkways that wound everywhere throughout the hostel's buildings were something else. They clearly hadn't been laid properly and the stones wobbled under your feet and clinked against each other at every step. We nicknamed the paths the "Nightingale Walk", since there was no way to cross them quietly. No sneaking around after dark for us, ha ha!

After unpacking and inhaling a quick snack, we got back in the car and drove out to Uluru - another 25 minutes past the resort - so we could watch the sun set over the rock. It was absolutely magical. Every moment, the colour of the rock changed, until at one point it was glowing a dull, burning red. So beautiful!

When we headed back to the hostel, the plan was for Jen and I to cook dinner for the four of us in the communal kitchen. WELL. Unlike almost every other hostel we've stayed in this year, the one at Uluru has a really crummy kitchen. There were four stoves/work stations in the centre of the room, which was nice, but there were hardly any pots and plates, and almost no cutlery to speak of! We had to wait for another group to finish with the one and only cutting knife. We used mugs to hold condiments (we were making fajitas) and saucers for our serving plates. There were no bowls at all. Considering this hostel can host upwards of 200 guests at a time in peak season, this was clearly unacceptable. When Jen went to reception to complain, she was basically given the cold shoulder. We're working on a complaint letter to send to both the resort's management and to the YHA, which had recommended this as a place to stay. Wednesday morning we struggled through breakfast again - what with the lack of dishes and all, it was a real challenge to eat cereal and toast - and then we were off again to Uluru.

We spent our morning at the Anangu Aboriginal Cultural Centre, which was absolutely fantastic. The building itself was beautiful and had been designed by the Anangu people, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land. In the mid 1980's the National Park was returned to Aboriginal ownership, with the condition that the Park be leased back to the National Park Service for 99 years. It is jointly managed by the National Park Service and the Anangu people. The Cultural Centre tells Uluru's story from the Aboriginal perspective and not the scientific, and that was just fine. I learned a lot about the Dreaming stories connected to the rock, and also a bit about the culture and history of the Anangu people. Then it was finally time to go and do a little exploring at Uluru itself.

It's hard to wrap your head around exactly how big Uluru is. The rock stands 348m above the plain it stands on, and it's a 10km walk around its base. We'd driven totally around Uluru the night before, just after the sun set, and even in the dusk it was impressive. There was no way Mom was going to be able to walk all the way around the rock, so instead we settled on doing the 1km-long Kuniya walk, which took us to the Mutitjulu water hole on the south face of Uluru. This water hole features prominently in the Dreamtime stories about the rock, and was the location of a conflict between two powerful Dreaming serpents, Liru and Kuniya. Their marks can still be seen on the faces of the rock.

After visiting the water hole, we rested and ate lunch, and decided to take a drive to check out Kata Tjuta (also known as The Olgas), a huge formation of sandstone domes about 50kms from Uluru. Although this formation is not as well known outside of Australia as Uluru is, Kata Tjuta is considered even more sacred by the Anangu. Its Dreaming stories cannot be shared with outsiders. So we had to settle for admiring its beauty from the lookout, and then we all tackled the 2.6km-long Walpa Gorge walk. This walk was quite challenging and passed over crazy rocky ground as the path rose in between two of the huge domes (the tallest dome at Kata Tjuta is 546m high - so taller than Uluru - and only 7m shorter than the CN Tower. WOW!). The view at the end was spectacular though, and we were all glad we'd done it. I'm so proud of Mom! She's had to face a number of physical challenges in recent years, and of course she broke her arm about 6 weeks before coming to Australia, so I know the walk wasn't easy on her. But she did it! Yay Mom!

After walking the gorge, we decided we all needed a drink (actually, Mom and Dad really wanted a coffee, ha ha!), so we climbed back in the car and drove back to the Cultural Centre at Uluru. While Mom and Dad enjoyed their caffeine, Jen and I went art shopping. I really, really wanted to buy a dot painting from the desert, and although I'd been looking in Alice Springs, I still hadn't found the right one. I was hoping to have better luck at Uluru itself, but no. (Hence why I was so happy to buy my artwork in Coober Pedy!)

When we returned to the resort, Dad told us he was treating us all to dinner - as this was his and Mom's last night with us in OZ. There was this cool do-it-yourself BBQ place which we'd seen the day before. You ordered your meat at the counter, then took it to one of the BBQ stations and cooked it yourself. We also had access to the all-you-could-eat salad and dessert bar - all for less than $20/person! Pretty cool! And the burgers were great. Mmmmmmm.

After enjoying the entertainment of watching Dad trying to repack all their bags in preparation for leaving the next day, we made it an early night - mostly 'cause we were up at 5:30 on Thursday morning so we could drive out to Uluru and watch the sun rise! It was chilly and I quickly found myself wishing I'd brought my polar fleece. (I am becoming such a suck. I don't know how I'm going to survive my next Canadian winter, I really don't!) If the sunset had been beautiful, the sunrise was completely out of this world! Because the land around Uluru is so flat, there's this moment, as the sun rises, where the face of the rock is illuminated and the surrounding desert isn't, which makes the rock practically glow. I'm so happy with how my pictures turned out!

Once the sun was well up in the sky, we returned once more to the resort to finish packing and eat breakfast, then Jen and I drove Mom and Dad to the local (teeny!) airport to send them on their way back to Sydney and then to Canada. It was strange saying goodbye - last time I saw them, it was Mom and Dad wishing me well as I headed off at the start of this OZ adventure! But I will be seeing them again in just over a month, so all is well.

Jen's and my plan for the day was to tackle the 10km walk around Uluru's base. The walk itself was totally flat and easy, with plenty of interesting places to explore along the way. Some of the areas around Uluru's base are sacred sites for the Anangu, and there are big signs posted asking people not to take pictures. So some of the coolest parts of the rock, I can't share with you - you'll have to go there yourself. It really irked me to see some tourists still taking photos at these sites. It's not like it was possible to miss the signs. How hard is it to show a little respect for the people who have taken care of this place for 20,000+ years?

Jen and I also chose NOT to climb Uluru, again in keeping with the wishes of the rock's traditional owners. For the Anangu, climbing Uluru is a special act of a deep spiritual nature, and not to be undertaken "just for the fun of it". Again, it really bugged me that so many people still chose to do the climb. There are signs up in the Cultural Centre, in the Park map that everyone gets upon entry, and right at the base of the climb itself, explaining why we shouldn't climb. To me, climbing Uluru without being properly prepared in the traditional ways is in just as poor taste as rappelling down the inside of a cathedral during a mass. It simply shouldn't be done, not without the proper training and permission from the rock's traditional owners. If we are to truly learn about each others' cultures, then showing respect for each others' special/sacred places is important.

Anyway.

The walk around Uluru took us less than half the time we'd expected - we completed it in just over 2 hours! We returned once more to the Cultural Centre for a drink and some well-earned fries, and took one more crack at searching for paintings. No luck with the paintings, but I did purchase a small coolamon, or bowl made out of tree bark, which are traditionally used by Aboriginal women. So at least I have one authentic souvenir from Uluru!

We still had about half the afternoon remaining, so we decided to drive back to Kata Tjuta and tackle the Valley of the Winds walk. This is a 7.5km track that climbs up to a stunning lookout between two of the big domes, and then winds its way through more domes before returning to the car park. I am so glad we decided to do this walk (although what we were thinking, doing this walk after having already completed a 10km hike that day is beyond me!). The scenery was absolutely amazing, and since we climbed quite high between the domes, we could see a long way out into the desert. Some parts of the path were really steep, but the view from the lookout was totally worth it. And as we were returning to the car park, the sun was setting, which lit the domes of rock up like fiery pillars. Beautiful.

So we returned once more to the resort, very tired, very footsore, and very happy. We were far too tired to make our own dinner, so we treated ourselves to another go at the BBQ place. In the evening we practically collapsed into our beds and slept soundly!

And on the Friday morning, we drove to Watarrka National Park - also known as Kings Canyon - for one more adventure. But it's already midnight here and we're doing a Guiding training tomorrow afternoon, so I'm gonna sign off for now - more tomorrow!