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Published: October 18th 2008
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Uluru
Sunrise at the Rock The requirement to hum along to that classic piece of Smokie is not obligatory as you read the blog. Uluru is apparently the most visited single site in Australia and if you are wondering if it's worth the effort to get there, the answer is a big yes! We'd been up at some hour well before dawn again, leaving South Australia behind and crossing into the Territory. There clearly wasn't much distinction between the two, as we rolled on past mile after mile of scrub and desert, which was punctuated by yesterday's road kill and feasting wedge tailed eagles. The distance on the map as your fingers space out suggests that the rock is literally next door to Alice, but the distances out here are immense. After a full day of driving from Coober Pedy, we arrived at camp on the edge of the Ayers Rock Resort, where it seems you can pay big bucks to sleep in a ritzy hotel or relatively big bucks to sleep in your swag. We had the latter option and the star gazers amongst you won't sleep anyway.
In the same way that you could describe the Grand Canyon as a big hole in
Uluru
The changing colours of sunset the ground, this is surely just a big rock - rock being the point though as it's a monlith. The scale of the place becomes evident as you approach - it is something like five miles to walk round it. The most striking aspect of the place though are the colours and as if somehow it's not really happening, they begin to change as the sun begins to set. After a brief base walk, we retreated to a view point to watch the sunset. The best Australian cava came out of the truck with some top of the range plastic cups, as we settled down to watch the unfolding colour show. I was impressed, everybody else was impressed and I'm not sure how you could fail to be honest. The barbeque skills came to the fore, before we settled down to our swags. It was probably a pleasent 25 degrees in the sun, but the temperature nosedived through the night as we piled on the extra layers from our packs. The star show was amazing - on a par with what we would experience in Nambia a coupe of years later.
We had a lie in - up at
Uluru
The ants begin to climb 5am for sunrise over the rock. The tactic was clearly to be there in time to bag a decent view of the spectacle, which you wouldn't think would be hard given your lack of proximity to a major population centre. How wrong you can be though, as vehicles kept arriving and arriving. A few moments before the light came on to the rock, what I envisaged to be the perfect photo was ruined by some upstarts in a camper van who proceeded to climb on to up it's roof and obscure part of my shot. If you were wondering why there are lots of pictures of two thirds of the red monlith, you are now informed. Whilst that spoilied the photographic results, it is definitely up there in the top 5 natural sites.
The sea of humanity then heads to the base of the rock - some to climb and some to walk round the massive base. It's not exactly Everest I thought and ice picks are not required, but it's not a climb for the unfit or faint hearted. The first section has a chain rope to hold on to for a degree of comfort. The drop either
Uluru
The changing colours of sunset side therefter could give you some concern, if you don't have a head for heights. Miranda walked round the base and I set off with some of the group just as the sun was warming the rock. We climbed with our instructions not to chase untied hats or lense caps over the edge into the abyss, as you can imagine that a fair few have done over the years. The wind speed increases as you go up and it is literally blowing a gale near the top. The view is unparralled, as you look across to Kata Tjuta 30 odd miles away. Climb early is the advice and judging by the poor souls we passed on the way down, it is very good advice.
We drove to Kata Tjuta and completed the Valley of the Winds walk and the Olga Gorge walk. After Uluru, it's undoubtedly an anti-climax - but you'll look back a few weeks after and think that you've done a lot worse things in your life than spend an afternoon in the park. The evening camp was at Kings Canyon. Another day, another hike. The walls of Kings Canyon are 300 metres high, so it stands
Uluru
The changing colours of sunset to reason that it'll be a long walk up. The tried and tested route is up something called Heart Attack Hill - you don't have to be a genuis to work out the reason for the name. The group took the other route to the top - a long, slow meandering trail, that we were assured would put us in a much better frame of mind for viewing the Canyon.....and so it proved. The walk down Heart Attack Hill further justified the decision made on our behalf, especially as the temperature begain to rise with the sun.
After Kings Canyon, we had our first brush with that most Australian of species - the party hostel. You see the many documentaries on Australian wildlife and how it can kill you in just about every direction you take, but none is more deadly than a couple of nights in what I've subsequently seen described on a hostel review website as a "correctional facility for backpackers" - bring back the swag was the popular concensus. We rolled into Melankas in mid afternoon and having had enough of communal sleeping for a day or two, upgraded to a double room. The latter term
of upgrade is obviously a loose description of the shoebox on offer. Melankas sets it's stall out to cater for the passing backpacker bus trade and if the object of your desires is a whole lot of booze, some very average school dinner style food and a sound system that can probably be heard as far away as Uluru, then you have come to the right place. First, we had an appointment with a launderette!
We joined the rest of the group in a sea of other groups - all of whom were either just completing or starting an Uluru trip or had just come down the track from Darwin. The beer flows, the music gets turned up and some of members of each group decide that they get on really rather well!! The only thing that doesn't seem to go down too well at Melankas is dancing on the tables, but Miranda would get plenty of subsequent practice elsewhere on the trip. We retired as old timers at the unearthly hour of 2 am, only to be woken up from our slumbers by a fire alarm a couple of hours later - the party was still going strong
Uluru
Sunrise at the Rock at this point and continued to drown out any possibility of the alarm being heard in some parts of the building.
The following day was described in my notes as a "day of recovery". We went to the Flying Doctor Museum, wandered round town and encountered for the first time the quaint tradition of sitting in the dried up Todd River drinking Jim Bean and Bundy & Coke. We retreated to climb Anzac Hill for the view over town and by the previous night standards, had a quiet one. As we were accomplished walkers by now, we headed out to the Telegraph Station on the edge of town and sought sanctury from backpacker land in an RSL Club. The proposed early night was disturbed by the now obligatory fire alarm in the middle of the night.
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