Just a rock

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Before making my way to the east coast, I flew into Uluru to check out the famous rock. Pretty much the only place to stay near Uluru is in the resort village of Yulara, which is about 20km from Uluru. The place has an airport, restaurants, a supermarket, hotels, police station, fire station, primary school and university campus (really), so seeing Uluru is pretty easy and convenient. I was pleasantly surprised by the resort - the facilities were good, things were a bit expensive but not extortionately over-priced and there were free shuttles taking you to/from the airport and around the village, which was good thing since the temperatures maxed out to 37.

The first thing I did after checking in was to figure out a way to get to Uluru. This turned out to be pretty easy as there were plenty of tours, all expensive though. Being a cheapskate, I decided to take the cheapest option with the Uluru Express, which is just a return shuttle service from Yulara to Uluru.

Next morning, I got up early to catch my shuttle before sunrise. Strangely, the sunrise viewing place is to the east of the rock, so the sun rises in one direction with the rock in the other (I had expected the sun to rise from behind the rock). More strangely, the sun rise view place is on low ground so trees in the distance partially obscured the sunrise. All this didn't matter though, since there was quite a bit of cloud cover. Next, we drove to the rock to see if we can climb it. Unfortunately, the climb was closed due to high winds, so I, along with a couple people on the bus, walked around the base. The whole trek took around 3 hours. Thankfully, the cloud cover remained throughout the morning, which kept the temperature down. We saw a lot of holes in the rock (caused by lightning strikes), some strange rock formations and noticed that the outback was surprisingly lush (apparently they had a lot of rain recently), but after a hour the scenery became a bit monotonous.

Back at the resort there are lookouts with views of Uluru and the Olgas (a set of large strange rock formations nearby), which I took pictures of at sunset and at sunrise the following day. In my opinion, the rock is best view from afar.

Overall, I found the whole Uluru experience a bit, well, underwhelming. I don't want to sound flippant but Uluru is just a large rock in the desert, but not in the same way that the Grand Canyon is just a hole in the ground nor that Dune 45 is just a pile of sand, there's just something missing, something a bit more spectacular.

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Photos

Uluru
Close up.

Uluru
At sunset.

The Olgas
At sunset.

Uluru
Sunrise from lookout in resort.

Uluru
From the outbound flight.