The Red Centre: Kings Canyon, Uluru & Kata Tjuta

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Panoramic View: Kata Tjuta On The Horizon. We didn't want to get too OTT with Uluru

Leaving Alice Springs

And then we were off on our next odyssey. It was a 5:05am pick up (ouch!) so it was up in the pitch black. Due the nature of a 16 bed dorm, we hadn't had the best nights sleep, but beggars can't really be choosers as we all know.

We met Sauce, our guide for the next 6 days until Adelaide. He was a true Aussie bush-man; thick accent, long hair and beard and an attitude weathered by the outback desert. From the off, he started calling us both "Scotty" due to our nationality. We soon met the rest of our group which consisted of 2 Dutch girls, a German girl, a Danish girl, 3 Brazilian girls, a Columbian woman and her son, an English & Welsh couple, an Israeli girl and a South Korean girl. A varied group although 6 were only doing the 2 day Red Centre tour which this blog is covering. We know most of their names but it became a bit easier to remember by country. A fact that was apparant when we were called Scotty most of the trip, with a few people actually believing my name to be Scott.

We set off in our bus bound for Kings Canyon, a canyon forged by sandstone over millions of years. Unlike the erroneously named Grand Canyon, which was formed by water, this had just been made by a crack in the earth becoming wider over time. On the way their, we took the Stuart Highway, which was named after John McDouall Stuart a fellow Scottishman and surname sharer who had initially charted the middle of Australia. He eventually made it from Adelaide to Darwin on his third try, without any of his crew dying and was given an ample reward by the South Australia government. It really is a barren place; flat desert for thousands of miles with some patchy vegetation, kangeroos and Aboriginals the only inhabitants. We did see some rogue camels and horses though, camels having been brought over by Afghanis a century and a half before to navigate the unforgiving terrain and horses for similar deeds. They had since been released into the wild where they inevitably multiplied and now roamed the outback freely. We slept most of the way due to the ungodly start and after a few stops at service stations for the restroom facilities, we pulled up to Kings Canyon at lunchtime.

Kings Canyon

We had some Tuna & Ham sandwiches before setting off on our climb up to the top of the canyon. It was relatively steep and we found ourselves soon short of breath and gasping at our water bottles, due to some intense desert heat. The slope was called Heart Attack Hill for a reason! And this wasn't even the hot time of the year! It afforded us great views over the outback and the canyon itself and Sauce provided us some detailed information on the geology of the area and the history. It took us about 3 hours to navigate the canyon and we saw different places such as The Garden Of Eden, a glorified water hole. Part of the place is Aboriginal sacred ground, which was restricted to tourists.

People had even got lost as after wandering around a while, a lot of it does start to look the same. The thirst factor is very high too and we had polished off our water before the walks end. We headed back to the van, ready for the next leg of our journey to Yulara, our camping area for the night.

We were told more information about Lasseter, a white explorer who believed there to be a gold source somewhere in the outback from a dubious map his friend had. He died from his efforts, having been unable to exist on Aboriginal bush-tucker due to 60,000 years of a slightly different evolutionary path. We passed a similar rock to Uluru, Mount Conner which we saw at a distance. Unlike Uluru, it was not a monlith but made up of different rock formations. These journeys were long so by the time we got to Yulara, it was nightfall.

We ate a BBQ dinner, which proved to be very tasty before retiring to the campfire to toast some marshmallows and have a talk. Due to the long day, we retired to our "tents" (they were permananet structures and were more like huts, even having two beds) dusting ourselves off from the desert sand and falling asleep instantly.

Uluru AKA Ayers Rock

Even earlier start this morning, it was 4am. After breakfast, we left at 5am to make the short journey to Uluru itself for the spectacular sunrise. It was weird seeing this hulking rock coming out of nowhere, and even in the dark it looked pretty amazing as a silhouette. We had been given the option of climbing to the top, but it is strongly discouraged by the local Aboriginal owners, who use the rock as a sacred site. Emma and myself opted against climbing, but it turned out the winds were too high for it to be safe anyway, so the full group were instead going to walk around the base.

We left our vehicle shortly before the sunrise and started walking around. As the sun came out, we were treated with a fiery glow from the rock and I ended up running out off the trail to get a good picture. It turned out I needed to go further than I anticipated to get the full view and ended up fighting through some rough outback vegetation. I got the picture though, but I don't think Emma was too happy waiting for what she thought was going to be "2 seconds", as I had told her. We continued our walk around the base, taking in the awesome scenery. Although we've seen it so many times on postcards and pictures, it really is amazing to behold in real life. The pictures (and we have loads) we've got don't do it justice as it really is something that has to be seen outwith a camera lens. A lot of people who visit aren't that appreciative of it, regarding it as just a rock (which it obviously is), but the sheer scale (biggest monlith in the world), texture, setting and colours really elevate it way beyond your average garden variety boulder. I suppose it's similar to how a lot of people regard Angkor Wat as merely ruins; it just depends what looks good to you.

The walk around the base was surprisingly long, and we got to see some ancient Aboriginal paintings on the side. It's not similar to Aboriginal art which apparantly is a lot more prevalent in areas around Darwin where there is more water, but they believe it was used as teaching tools for Aboriginal children. It was pretty interesting to see, although a lot of the symbols were rudimentary in comparison to their far more complex artwork.

After getting back to the bus, again extremely dusty, we headed back to camp where we bade farewell to the 6 people only doing the 2 day trip. After a spot of lunch, we headed into town for a wander, although there wasn't much to the place, before going back to the camp and setting off to Kata Tjuta.

Kata Tjuta AKA The Olgas & Sunset At Uluru

It was a short journey to Kata Tjuta, a group of rock formations. The highest point of these is actually taller than Uluru, and unlike there, this place consisted of thousands of different rocks which had collected there following the recession of an ancient inland sea which had once covered a lot of Australia. Uluru had been forged into one stone through millions of years of sand hardening in one spot whereas Kata Tjuta was mainly the breaking down of bigger rocks.

We didn't spend too long here as some of the group were being taken back to Alice, only doing the 2 day tour. We got to see everything here and enjoyed wandering about. A lot more rocky than Kings Canyon and Uluru, it meant that it wasn't so sandy. This is another place where photos really don't capture how cool these things looked up close. Some of the views they offered were pretty amazing too.

We headed back and had a BBQ lunch and bade our farewell to the people leaving. After exploring Yulara for a while (not much to it, basically a tourist vessel for Uluru), we headed out to the Aboriginal Cultural Centre. This was fairly interesting and had a lot of authentic Aboriginal art, although it was a bit out of our price range. It gave some insight into why the rocks here meant so much to them, although this information was a bit limited as it is considered too sacred to pass more than the children's stories onto outsiders. Like most other religions, the stories are didactic and more to provide children with life lessons instead of trying to make them believe that the holes in Uluru were the result of a spear fight between two people.

Afterwards, we headed for the coup de grace; sunset at Uluru. A classic postcard picture and shedloads of tourists, it was still pretty nice. It turned out to be a bit cloudy, so it could have been better, but the sun still showed it's colours on the rock intermittently. We had "champagne" too (fizzy wine) which brought the sunset in. We headed back once it got a bit darker and had our dinner then spent more time around the campfire. The infamous Goon came out, but we never had any of our own thankfully although still ended up having a cheeky glass.

For the finale, we decided to use a swag to sleep outside under the stars. Emma was a bit apprehensive as it wasn't the warmest at night, but we were eventually cosied up inside drifting off to sleep under the night sky. A swag is basically an Aussie sleep roll item, which cocoons you inside and has a type of mattress. Using a sleeping bag too normally keeps the cold at bay, with only your face exposed to the elements. It's certainly a novel way to sleep and we're glad we did it.

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Photos

The Bus
Our mode of transportation.

Emma at Uluru
It was still slightly cold as the sun had just come up.