Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park

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Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park is a very sacred site to the Anangu Aboriginal people and with it the Red Centre the spiritual heart of Australia. Touring this area would be our final five days in the Northern Territory. There is only one campsite in Uluru national park and being budget backpackers this was over our budget for the amount of time we planned to stay so we free camped just outside of the national park. The only problem with this was we had no access to a shower so one morning we did sneak into the campsite for a quick 5 minute shower, what rebels we are!



We were waiting on the weather improve so that we were able to make the most of a visit to Uluru so we decided to visit to the Olga's (Kata-Tjuta) first. While there we trekked a 7.4km hike through the Valley of the Winds and with only the whistling winds to keep us company it was very peaceful. The Olga’s are the less visited part of the park so we had a good deal of the track to ourselves and it was slightly off the beaten track with the paths cutting through high grass areas. At the reptile park in Alice Springs we had learnt how to treat the initial stages of a snake bit and this was very much in the forefront of our thoughts. Luckily though we had no such problem and our hike was followed by a relaxing afternoon and evening spent at the sunset viewing point watching the darkness engulfing Uluru & the Olga’s.

We were up at 5am the following morning and we made our way to Uluru for sunrise. There was a fantastic viewing platform and paths a really good distance from Uluru where we could watch the sunrise. There were a lot of people at the viewpoint and they were there for the same reason as us, all we could hear was the sound of cameras taking pictures. We waited in darkness for Uluru to turn from a dull grey to a spectacular shade of red. This was just breath-taking. That afternoon we did the first of our booked tours, an aboriginal sunset tour of Ayers rock. After a good look around the Cultural Centre our guide Sarah (an aboriginal woman from the local community) took us on a walking tour of Uluru explaining the creation of the rock. We visited a watering hole, saw many wall paintings and traditional tools used by aboriginals and learnt of the history of Uluru all of which was explained to us through an interpreter, as Sarah spoke in her native tongue. That evening the tour continued and we enjoyed champagne and nibbles as we watched the sun set over Uluru again. We had a great viewpoint here, most people were looking and pointing their cameras at Uluru, we happened to turn around and the view of the sun setting and the colours of the sky over the Olgas blew us away. Our photos of the Olga’s were better than that of Uluru.

Sunrise was so magical for us that we wanted to witness it again so we had another early morning and we managed to capture some even better photos of Uluru. We took advantage of this early start to do a base walk of Uluru which has a circumference of 13 kilometres. It was the best time to do this walk when there aren’t many people on the track and also with the temperature climbing to 38 degrees plus daily we didn’t want to be out walking in the hottest part of the day. We could have climbed to the summit of Uluru but there has been a lot about the climb in the media, about how it can be a dangerous climb can be especially with the local weather conditions such as the wind and the heat and also that it is a sacred monument to the Aboriginal people. We didn’t want to be disrespectful so the decision not to climb in the end was an easy one.



Our second tour in Uluru National Park was a camel ride at sunset followed again by champagne and nibbles. This was something different and neither of us had been camel trekking before. It was great; we had fabulous views of the Olga’s & Uluru at sunset. We were on a younger camel, a teenager if you will and he was a little mischievous. Khan (our camel) kept shoving the other camels in front of us which we found very amusing, luckily he didn’t take off, I doubt that wouldn’t have been so funny.

The final activity we partook in the national park was to go on a night sky star show; it was our lucky night too as due to cloud cover it had been cancelled the previous 11 nights in a row. We were not sure what to expect here but we were pleasantly surprised, the tour was very good, and informative. We got to see shooting stars, satellites, the Milky Way, Mars and even Saturn, as well as learning about the many different constellations. Because there is no light pollution out in the middle of the desert, the sky was clear and bright. We even got to look through some powerful telescopes which is not something that we would normally have had the chance to do.



We left the national park late and doing something we were advised not to do, we drove the 80 kilometres to curtain springs campground where we would be crashing for the night. On the drive four wild camels ran across the road in front of us. This is the reason why night time driving is not recommended in the outback, it sacred the living daylights out of us and needless to say we drove a little slower from then on in. We left the northern territory behind us and made the long journey south again to Adelaide. It took us two days to make the journey back down the Stuart Highway with breaking the journey overnight at Coober Pedy. As unusual town, it exists due to the local opal mining and is so hot most people live underground; there was a little sightseeing here before stocking up on essentials. We even had to pay to fill up our tank with ‘free’ tap water, in the desert water is definitely a commodity. The second day we planned to stop at Port Augusta but feeling like we could manage the trip we drove on to Adelaide clocking up a nice total for a nice total of 790km for a day’s drive.

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Photos

Our sunset Camel ride
Us with Khan, our camel

Aboriginal Tour of Uluru
Me with our Guide Sarah

Uluru
Uluru on our first day, a bit cloudy.. but at least it didn't rain!

Uluru
The rock just after sunrise, at abour 9am.

Uluru
cave paintings at Uluru

The olgas
Sunset at the Olgas during our camel tour