Into the Valley of the Winds

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Day 121 - Kata Tjuta

Funny how your legs seize up after a tiny bit of walking isn’t it! The back of my left knee is begging for mercy but it’s not going to get any because we’re off again today!

Dar springs out of bed, joyful that yet again we’re up when the world is still in darkness! In fairness we’d been woken up well before the alarm by what sounded like an explosion but turned out to be the siren signalling the start of the day for some of the Variety Club bashers! Most of them have already left but the WA gang are travelling home from Yulara (the Uluru resort) and crossing into WA via the permit road near to Kata Tjuta which is the direction we’re heading in today so most likely our paths will cross again!

First we take another look at the sunrise over Uluru! Well it’s unlikely that we’ll be back here for a few years so we may as well soak up the opportunity while we have it.

The sunrise is lovely and we’re looking at it from a different angle today, near to the sunset viewing area so the sun is to the left of the rock. The cloud effects are magnificent and we get chatting to another guy who is taking photographs and starts offering us tips which we’re grateful for as always!

With the sun peeking through the clouds we decide to move on to Kata Tjuta which is about 50kms away although still in the National Park. We’re on the look out for wildlife of course but don’t see any this morning, not even a camel or two. We stop off at the first look out, a walk over the sand dunes and it’s an impressive sight. The guide tells you to listen for the breeze whispering through the desert oaks and we’re lucky that it’s quiet enough for us to do this despite chatting to one of the VCB mechanics who is part of the ‘final car’ team making sure everyone gets home safely.

We make a quick pit stop at the only facilities within this area of the park and then head across to the big walk, the Valley of the Winds. This is where the lady we met yesterday insisted that I ask the spirits for safe passage through the walk. It’s a 7.4 km circuit walk which is described as challenging as you pass through spectacular stony country. At the first lookout, Karu I duly ask the question to the spirits and am thankful that I don’t receive a response negatively or otherwise. We continue along the rugged track and then we get to an unexpected sort of ‘lookout’ for coming towards us are a group of backpackers seemingly returning from a very early morning walk. At the back of the group is a very attractive young lady wearing hot pants, a mid riff top, stockings and STILLETTOS! I kid you not! Now I had to summon all my strength to a) not laugh out loud b) not ask what the bloody hell she thought she was doing but most importantly c) not take a photograph (although I thought about it!). Unbelievable! I think Dar was summoning a whole other hoard of strengths at the same time!

We continued on with our walk, Dar now had a bit of a spring in his step, and wound our way through the track. The whole area is considered sacred under Anangu mens law and is still in use. Outside of the Anangu elder community not much is known about this place, details of stories cannot be revealed and access is restricted to certain areas.

There are elements of rock scrambling and the wind is howling around us which is strange as it was quite calm when we’d started. It makes it quite eerie.

The second lookout is spectacular, it’s really awesome and the photographs won’t do it justice because I’ve yet to combat ‘shadows’ but it just took your breath away. The steepness of the climb down was pretty awesome too and we start wondering if we would have to return this way, let’s hope not!! Once at the bottom you are now walking within the gorge and it’s much cooler although that doesn’t last long before you’re thrust out into the sun again. The key to walks like this is to make sure you stop and look around at the scenery; you have to watch your step all the time so making a point of stopping is the safest way! That’s our excuse anyway!!

We made it to the shelter and stopped for a drink. Dar spots a couple of familiar faces coming through the later section of the walk, it’s Tony and Jane! We decide to head off in front of them knowing that they will catch us up in no time and we don’t want to slow them down! Sure enough by the time we’ve got to the bridge before the final climb back out of the valley we hear a ‘You Hoo’ behind us! We have a great time chatting about the walk and just as we were starting off again Tony spots the lad that took the photo of us ‘in the clouds’ yesterday! How funny! Stefano and Christiana are visiting from Italy and although Stefano spends a lot of time travelling through his work with Westlands (helicopters), Christiana is the one who urges him to get out and away for longer periods of holiday time so she can get out of the office in Rome! They’re a lovely couple and it’s a shame they are flying out tomorrow so we can’t spend more time with them. We wish them a good flight back to Sydney and hope we’ll hear from them again in the future. We’ll send them a link to the blog so they can see their photo up in lights!

Up we climb and the conversation turns to wildlife spotting, Tony and Jane win this as they spied Camels on the way into the area this morning! I throw in the ‘Stiletto’ spotting we did earlier and Jane exclaims that they saw her too and that in fact Tony had then gone on to remark about her diamond naval stud which Jane thought was hilarious because she hadn’t looked that closely! It was funny and neither of them took a photograph either! Darn, nobody will believe us!

Back at the first look out we met another couple from yesterday who had also just finished the walk, the wildlife conversation started up again when they said they’d seen a family of Kangaroos as they walked through! Something else we’d missed which it not at all like us, obviously the Stilettos threw us off the scent of anything normal. This couple had seen the same girl but they’d asked if she’d done the whole walk and she said she had! My word! Still no photograph to prove it though!

We figured we’d all meet up again later in the day as our itinerary was very similar! Tony and Jane went off for a cuppa and we went off to the Walpa Gorge walk but ate our lunch in the shelter there first.

It was here I got a serious bout of ‘lens envy’! A guy had stopped in the walks entrance to set up the biggest lens I think I’ve ever seen! We walked on by but all the while I was thinking that he must be a professional, he had so much kit! The walk through the gorge was lovely, very cooling towards the end as the walls provide much shadow. We played around with taking photographs of us with the self timer but luckily in time others came along to take a better one! The photography guy came too with his wife and little boy. We were pretty sure they weren’t English but I couldn’t resist making the ‘I have serious lens envy’ comment! He laughed and immediately offered it to me for a go! WOW!! In no time at all he’d swapped my insignificant 18 - 200mm lens for this incredible whopper which I could barely lift!!! The family are Italian and the gent doesn’t speak much English but we do manage to gleen that he is a professional photographer over here for a holiday with his family. I don’t make great use of the lens as I’ve no idea what to take a photo of and the moon which was peeking through the clouds above the gorge has inconveniently disappeared but I thank him very much for the opportunity and we swap back. Darryl is spotting interesting features high on the gorge walls so we share our binoculars with the family so they can see the nose, eyes and mouth we’ve found! We all have a laugh and then who should walk through but Tony and Jane!

There’s a whole period of time where we’re having our photo taken by a kind lady whilst her husband Tom is telling us how to stand, that Dar should be giving me a cuddle, that I should have my head on his shoulder etc etc etc! It’s hilarious but when it comes to Tom having a photo with his wife he’s very much against the idea so we make a right deal out of it for him and give him the same overhaul he gave us! It’s a hoot! And there was us wondering why we don’t see much wildlife, there’s too much laughter!!

The walk back to the car park was lovely and even then we met people along the way that we’ve seen elsewhere! Tony and Jane had mentioned they’d seen a couple of camels as they drove in this morning so we were on high alert during the journey back to the campsite. The shout went up after only a short while. I’d spotted two camels heading back into the bush. Attack driver Howells spun the car round and I dived out the door to shouts of ‘Come on, hurry up, is the camera even on?’ They’re not brilliant but we do have photos of wild camels now!

Another day comes to an end but back at camp there’s still time for blog write ups, looking at photographs and then running up to the look outs to watch the sunset. Whilst most people go up to watch the sun as it comes down, tonight we went up when the sun was pretty much down and then watched the night sky taking over. It was really good and we had loads of fun trying to get the quarter moon on camera but what with the movement of the clouds it’s a bit too much of a challenge for the likes of me but Dar manages some good shots with the little Casio again!

Tony and Jane went off on the Sounds of Silence dinner tonight so we hope they had a great time. Carol and Ray (the couple we met at Mt Conner) were hoping to go on the Stargazing tour but with such a cloudy sky we wonder if that will have been possible. As it is we’re all heading to Kings Canyon tomorrow so we’ll catch up with all their news then!

Apologies for the lack of updates on the blog, as usual it’s all being written on a daily basis and we do have internet coverage but we just run out of time to get them on so I hope you’ll have a read of the three different blogs, or at least glance at the pics as it was such an interesting area to visit.

The Wallaby Wanderers are wandering again tomorrow so we hit the sack for a much appreciated sleep.

Hope all is well back home and speak to you all soon

Lots of love

Dar and Sar

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