Blogs from Kata Tjuta, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania

Today, it was totally KATA TJUKA. Located approximately 50km west of our accommodation at Yulara, Kata Tjuka means ‘many heads’ and is sacred to the local Aboriginal Anangu people. It forms an important focus of their spiritual life. The ochre-coloured shapes are an intriguing and mesmerising sight. We stopped at the dune viewing platform, still 25kms from Kata Tjuka, and viewed the large dome rock formations, of which there are 36, for an overall view. The highest dome of this sandstone monolith stands 546m above the surrounding plain. On arrival, we walked together to Karu, the first lookout on the Valley of the Winds trail, before fleet footed mountain goat Jane continued to the second lookout, Karingana, a grade 4 difficult walk. I returned to our starting point. We visited and walked a small section of ... read more

It was during the summer holidays last year when I got a bonus from work and I decided to spend it all on travel. I flew to Australia to see the famous Uluru rock in the Northern Territory’s hot desert. Alice Springs town had great and affordable accommodation so I checked into one of the hotels. I was anticipating to see the sunset that evening so I hired a car and drove to the rock. It was about four hundred kilometers from Alice Springs town. The road towards the rock was sandy and very dusty. The area was flat and dry with scarce vegetation. All I could see through the window were scattered shrubs, thorny trees and grass. On arrival at the foot of the mountain, I met other people who wanted to see the sunset. ... read more

Hi Everyone, Woke at 5am, and left the campsite by 5.30am to head to a look out point of Uluru for the sunrise. We had a breakfast of beaked beans, cereal, toast and fruit bread at the look out point at around 6.30am. Our main part of the day was to walk Kata Tjuta, it is called the Valley of the Winds walk (including the Karu and Karingana lookout points), 7.4km 3 hours. It was spectacular!!! We took so many amazing photos but they have disappeared off the camera and computer, we are devastated and hope to get some off the others on the tour. I took some off the internet to show you how amazing it was!!! We had an early lunch at a local picnic site- Mexican nachos…delicious. In the afternoon we went in ... read more

Nothing like a steaming cup of coffee (courtesy of Lourens) to kick start a hike up the gorge. The boys were lifted into the bus in their PJ’s at the last minute. It was icy cold for most of the morning. We drove into the Kata-Tjuta National Park once more, this time to watch the sunrise over Kata-Tjuta. Whereas I found Uluru sombre, oppressive, secretive and forbidding, even dirty; this morning’s outing was a highlight of the trip so far. I found the domes welcoming; intriguing, enticing, the walk up the gorge was bracing, exhilarating and uplifting. I still can’t get over how green and lush the vegetation is. On the way back Kylan and I shared a fantasy moment collecting magic pebbles for our friends back home. It has long been my tradition to collect ... read more

With last year’s visit to the Cedarberg mountains and a not too long ago visit to Golden Gate in the Free State still etched in memory I find it hard to wax lyrical over Mt Connor; much less get excited over at last spotting some cattle. This is a cattle station, right? But I am being unfair. We did see some of the big red kangaroos too. NO we did not get to see Uluru. Lazy morning again, experiencing life as in a stuffed sausage. 6 folks in a campervan. We are not doing too badly so far. The kids are amazingly adaptable. Brekky in our teeny dining room was cosy and chatty. At 14h30 we left for our tour of the cattle station with James from SE.IT as our guide. Lake Swanson was a surprise. ... read more