Uluru (oo-la-roo) and Kata Tjuta (Kar-ta choo-ta)

Hello everyone!

Well what a great few days we have just had. We flew from Cairns to Yulara, which is the airport right next to Ayers Rock (Uluru). It was so cool seeing it from the air as we flew in! Yulara is basically a big resort with 5 different hotels and its all owned by one company, Vogages, and the nearest town is a few 100 Km's away so have the monopoly over everything remotly near Uluru! We stayed in the one budget hotel/hostel called Pioneer Outback Hotel. As soon as we landed to the 30 degree heat we got our tours sorted so as I could run to the pool much to Martyns disgust! Had a lovely lazy day and early to bed cause we were getting up super ealy for sun rise over Ulur the next day.

Got picked up and 6 am and it was FREEZING! It was 4 degrees! We have not had cold like it since Glasgow airport the day we left! We were all wrapped up in scarfs and jumpers and watched the sun come up over the rock. It was beautiful, the colours changing were so lovely, dont worry we have really about 50 pictures of 1/2 an hour! After the sun was up and it was starting to heat up we got to the base of the rock and started the 9.4km walk around it. We had decided not to do the climb up the actual rock as the Aborigines believe that it is sacred and they ask you not to climb it. It is written everywhere but you would still not believe the amount of people still climbing it. To be honest I was glad they didnt want us to, it looked pretty hard going!!! It was a pretty easy walk round as it is all flat. It was so quiet at that time of the morning so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It was amazing being so close and believe me it is HUGE!!We were back at the hotel by 12pm totally tired out, so yip you guessed it I lay by the pool and Martyn went back to bed for a bit!! That night we cooked our own BBQ well I should say chef Martyn did, hes quite the dab hand on the old BBQ, shame theres not much call for them in Scotland!!

The next day we had a free morning so we just explored around the resort, it is really nice with its own wee town centre with a post office and supermarket. We then got picked up at 12pm and taken to Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) They are similar rock formations to Uluru expect there are around 30 smaller rocks all clustered together. We had decided to do another walk here called The Valley of the Winds, this one was 8km's but my goodness this was no easy walk, up and down the whole way but my goodness the views were spectacular, so very much worth the sweating, red face and blisters! After we had done the walk we got taken to see the sun set over Uluru. Now if we thought sun rise was amazing this was just out of this world. It was gorgeous and even better seeing the rock get darker instead of brighter, dont worry we have about 100 pics of this one!

It was the best few days, defintly a highlight of OZ so far. We flew to Perth today with a quick stop in Alice Springs. We have 10 days here before we fly to Bangkok, got so much planned hope we get it all fit in!

Thank for everyone comments and messages on the last blog, keep looking at my ring, still hasn't sunk in!!

Will get the pics up sometime soon.
Loads of Love xxxxxx

---

---