Yesterday we left the Northern Territory. It was very sad but we were pleased that they could put on a fireworks display on our last night. Or maybe the fireworks were due to June 1st being 'Territory Day' but we appreciated it anyway.
Friday we finally got to see Uluru and we were definitely not
disappointed. This was an icon that we have all seen thousands of times
but to see it up close was completely different. It had so much more
character than the images can ever portray. We loved exploring all the
crevices and folds and different colours in this enormous rock the
following day as we rode our bikes the 10.4 kms around its base.
Seing Uluru at sunset was obviously on the agenda and on our first night
here we hopped on our bikes and took off to find a good vantage point.
Unfortunately we hadn't bothered to look too closely at the map and
ended up in a maze of very soft red dirt roads and succeeding only in
scaring Emma who thought we would be spending the night out there and
puncturing a couple of bike tyres. Put that down to another
experience. We found our way out just before it got dark and the next
night thought the car and the official 'sunset viewing area' might be a
better option.
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| Uluru at 5 |
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| Uluru at 5.30 |
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| Uluru at 6 |
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| Kata Tjuta at Sunrise |
Sunday was spent exploring Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). The kids and I got up at 6.45pm (temp 1 degrees) and we drove to the Kata Tjuta sunrise viewing area where we witnessed the sun rising between Kata Tjuta and Uluru amongst many other early starters. I hope no-one noticed I still had my pjs on under my coat... Back at camp Paul had my coffee ready to go, the temp was now up to 5 degrees. The rest of the morning was spent doing a few more loads of washing (hopefully the last big one before home), pancakes for lunch and then back to Kata Tjuta for the Valley of the Winds walk. I really had no idea what to expect from these rocks but as usual we were completely blown away by what we saw. How is that 20 km from the most enormous single rock there is a collection of enormous rocks made up from millions of river rocks?? We were concerned starting our 7.4 km 'difficult walk' when others were coming back puffing and panting when they had only completed part of the walk, but we needn't have worried, the difficult part never really eventuated and the 4 hour walk only took 2, but it was so magnificent. The fact that we finished this in good time meant that we could also fit in the Walga gorge walk and this too was very impressive.
Glass of wine in hand we then watched the sun go down over Kata Tjuta and as the moon gets back to its full state we are starting to feel very sad that this trip is very nearly at its conclusion....
Yesterday we left the Northern Territory. It was very sad but we were pleased that they could put on a fireworks display on our last night. Or maybe the fireworks were due to June 1st being 'Territory Day' but we appreciated it anyway.
Sunday was spent exploring Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). The kids and I got up at 6.45pm (temp 1 degrees) and we drove to the Kata Tjuta sunrise viewing area where we witnessed the sun rising between Kata Tjuta and Uluru amongst many other early starters. I hope no-one noticed I still had my pjs on under my coat... Back at camp Paul had my coffee ready to go, the temp was now up to 5 degrees. The rest of the morning was spent doing a few more loads of washing (hopefully the last big one before home), pancakes for lunch and then back to Kata Tjuta for the Valley of the Winds walk. I really had no idea what to expect from these rocks but as usual we were completely blown away by what we saw. How is that 20 km from the most enormous single rock there is a collection of enormous rocks made up from millions of river rocks?? We were concerned starting our 7.4 km 'difficult walk' when others were coming back puffing and panting when they had only completed part of the walk, but we needn't have worried, the difficult part never really eventuated and the 4 hour walk only took 2, but it was so magnificent. The fact that we finished this in good time meant that we could also fit in the Walga gorge walk and this too was very impressive.
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