Alice Springs and Uluru Tour

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G'day all,


The tour bus picked me up from the hostel at 0600, another nice early start! After all the pick ups the bus was full with 24 people.


Pickles, our guide, got each of us to get to the front of the bus in turn and using the microphone say our names, where we from and a little about our travels.

There were about 6 germans, 2 Polish, 4 Norwegian, 4 English, 1 Kiwi, 1 Japanese, 1 Spanish, 1 Mexican and a Korean on board. Three of them were couples the rest travelling alone or in small groups, 70% were girls.


We had a long drive to reach the Uluru area but stopped about three times for drinks, toilets and a chance to ride camels and see some kangaroos. One place we stopped had an Emu wandering around the car park!
We also stopped to collect some firewood for the next two nights campfires.


When we reached our campsite in Uluru, about 15 minute drive from Olgas and Uluru, we stopped for some lunch before setting off to The Olgas, a rock formation of 36 domes, I will explain later how botht hese and Uluru rock were formed. The campsite had a large central block of toilets and showers with other tours staying there, our area was just a small open area with a tap, a light and some covered cooking area and tables.


When we arrived at The Olgas (Kata Tjuta) , sun shining and the temperature around mid thirties, we hiked the Valley of the Winds 5km hike taking about 2.5 hours with some inclines in places. The Olgas like the Rock are a sacred place for the Aboriginals. When we reached the view point there were some amazing views, time for a group photo!


Pickles kept on at us to keep drinking water as in this heat you are supposed to drink a litre of water for every hour hiking to prevent dehydration. The rock formations were set in the middle of the desert, well greenish desert as the region had recieved large rainfall this year (750mm against ausual 75mm!!)

The rocks were made of a conglomerate gravel, as in pebbles, cobbles and boulders cemented together with sand and mud.


After the hike we drove to the sunset viewing area at Uluru rock, when the sun sets the colour of rock changes due to the angle of the sun against the earths atmosphere. When we got there we saw lots of other tour buses with people all over the place so we headed a bit further up the path to avoid the crowds. I sat down in the sand with a can of beer watching the sunset and occassionaly turning around to see the rock.


Then something spooky happened, I noticed someone in front of we waving their arm at me, so removed my sunglasses to see it was Maureen, the American lady i met at Drwaga Island in Fiji! What a small world! We chatted a bit before I had to head back tot he bus to meet the others as we headed off back to the campsite for dinner.


For dinner we had a barbecue having camel sausages, beef steaks and kangaroo steaks. Dan (the kiwi) and I manned the barbecue! After eating we only had a quick bonfire as everyone was really tired and ready for bed, well by bed I mean swag.


A swag is a sort of canvass sleeping bag that you put your sleeping bag inside. The swag has a foam bed inside and the swag is waterproof. We bundled all our swags near each other and slept under the stars. The stars looked amazing and saw quite a few shooting stars / meteroites.


We were up early in the morning, 0500, had breakfast then set off to Uluru to see the sunrise. There were some large clouds over the sun which looked amazing. after sunset we head to Uluru rock itself parked the bus and did the Mala informative walk with Pickles. This took about half an hour and then we all set off at our own base doing the base walk, right around the rock.


You can climb the rock, not that they like you to, particularly the aboriginals, also 35 people have died doing it! You could clearly see the route up the side of the rock. I was in two minds about it, did not want it to just be a tick in the box, but it was decided for me as the walk was closed due to high winds, which just seemed to be at that part of the rock and obviously stronger 350m higher up the top of the rock.


The base walk was pretty cool as you realised how large the rock was and could see various formations and erosion in the rock as you went around. It was a flat 10k walking taking around 2 hours, good that we set off early as it got to 35 degrees today. We were lucky with the weather as Pickles saidit had been raining the week before and three weeks before they had minus temperatures in the evening!


As you walked around the rock you went right up to it in places and you could see and feel that it was a coarse grained sandstone but with red scaly parts which is where the iron content in the stone rusts. Right lets try and explain the explanation given to the formation of Uluru and The Olgas!


Some 900 years ago Central australia had a "dip" in the land called the Amedeus basin which had a shallow sea within it. About 550 million years ago an east/west earth movement caused the Petermann mountain range to be formed, growing over 4000m high! The mountains had a high iron content but were also easily eroded as parts were made from sand from the sea bed.


About 400 million years ago the sea evaporated leaving some salt plains and the mountains eroded from a combination of wind, temperature, rain and the sea (when it was still there) oh and I think from some glacial formations. As the mountains broke up and the rocks etc tumbled down into the basin, the sand did the same but much of it drifted further along the basin by the wind.


Over millions of years the sand and rocks became compacted to form the Olgas and further away from the mountains the sand became compressed into sandstone to form Uluru, hence the difference you can see when you look / touch them up close. Another earth movement then squeezed the rock out of the ground and at an angle and then further erosion gives us what we see today, oh forgot there could be as much as 3 to 6 km of the rock underground, google it to check it out!


It is quite difficult getting your head around things like this when we are talking in hundreds of millions of years! after the base walk and some yummy fruit cake, we headed 5 mins drive to the visitor centre where they had some cultural stuff and souveneirs. We then had a three hour drive towards the Kings Canyon area where we would be camping next. We also drove past Mount Connor which has been mistaken by tourists as Uluru!


En route to the camp, about 15 mins before, we sayed at anothe rcampsite to use their swimming pool and shower facilities. Our camp was in the middle of nowehere with limited showers and toilets. Pickles, bless her, cooked us a yummy spaghetti bolegnese for dinner. Funny while we eat dinner as we were bombarded by giant flying crickets, some of the girls screamed!lol


This time we got the bonfire going and sat around for a few hours chatting before hitting our swags. It was really hot tonight so I ended up sleeping on top of my swag with my sleeping bag unzipped. I was awoken during the night by a lapping sound to find a dingo drinking water from unde rour tap, he came quite close until I shone my torch in his eyes.


Next morning up early again to get to Kings canyon and the long ride home, however we ended up getting woken at 0400 as Pickles had her watch saved to Adelaide time and South Australia had changed to summer daylight hours that night! after breakfastw e drove to Kings canyon and did yet another hike, 6 km this time but still taking 3.5 hours as we had to climb the canyon, walked down into it and then up and down the other side.


The canyon had been formed by long term erosion and where the faces of the canyon had split looked amazing, although the canyon itself was not very big. However the surrounding rock formations were more amazing, amazingly used to be sand dunes and over millions of years and turned into this sandstone and eroded into strange looking domes. Looked like a city for the sandmen out of star wars! lol


Just as well we were up early as it was 38 degrees today! They shut some of the walks when temp gets to 36 degrees in most of the National Parks. After the walk we headed back to Alice springs, stopping for a picnic lunch before the 5 hour drive, although we did have a few toilet and drink stops! The air conditioning packed in on the bus so we had to head back with the windows open, a little hot!


On arriving back at Alice I checked back into my hostel and had decided before the tour i would stay another 4 nights rather than catch The Ghan back the next day, so would catch the train on the Thursday instead. This meant I could chill out for a few days and see some of the local sights.


Dan and I met up for a few cold jugs of beer that night before I headed back to the hostel for dinner and an early night. Next morning I visited the reptile centre where they had lizards wandering around, gekkos, snakes and a salt water crocodile. I went with Lisa from the tour plus Yukka who i met on the train and her roomie Issabelle from belgium.


Following day Dan and I visited Desert Park, we walked 10km to get there and 10km back! where you could see birds of prey and walk around the different environments Sand country, Desert rivers and woodland and learn about the different wildlife, they also has kangaroos and emus. That night we had a few more beers and also met up with Danish Danny and one of the other german girls lisa.


Then had a day of washing and sorting out my blog etc then next day checked out of hostel and had to wait around until late afternoon before walking to the train station to catch the 1800 Ghan to Darwin. I had spoken to Mary in bachelor near Darwin who I am going to stay with for a couple of weeks. I would be helping Dennis do some building work around their house such as tiling, stud wall work and outside work. In return I would get food and a bed and an opportunity to see some of the local sights in Lichfield National Park.

Until next time.

Larf

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Comments

[cabochick]

loved Uluru tour
Thanks, your blog was a great walk down memory lane!