It’s one big rock. I took a 3 day 2 night tour of Kings Canyon, Kata Tjuta and Uluru with Mulga Adventures out of Annie’s Place in Alice Springs.A quick side note, Annie’s in Alice is heaps nicer than the Annie’s in Adelaide. It has a bar/restaurant with $5 meals and $10 jugs. Very social, very clean.
On day one we departed Alice Springs around 6:30am heading for Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon yields some very impressive rock formations that have been produced by tectonic plate movement and weathering. This is how most every rock formation is created, and depending on the circumstances of events we get different results. There is an 8km rim walk around the Canyon that we did, and the views were amazing. In summer the temperature gets up over 40C and makes the walk nearly impossible after 11am. This being winter our daily highs were 19-20C. When we completed the rim walk we headed towards our camp for the night, which turned out to be an open piece of land out back a cattle station. This is why Mulga Adventures tour costs less than most other tours — you rough it. The food is excellent and plentiful, the buses are top rate, the tour guide knowledgeable and nice. What you sacrifice are amenities in the evening. We made a final stop at flush toilets then trek off into the bush to roll out our swags and light a fire. In the morning we drove back to the toilets to get cleaned up — sans showers of course. For the time you are out it is more than doable. In the evening for us it got down close to 0C. Whoever got up in the night to pee had to stoke the fire. Good times.
On day two we ventured into Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to view and hike Kata Tjuta (aka The Olgas). This is actually a more sacred rock formation for the Aboriginal people than Uluru. Driving along the road you can see Uluru to one side and Kata Tjuta to the other. Kata Tjuta means ‘many heads’ and is an apt title for this formation that looks like many domes and soars 546m at its highest point. The views on this hike were also spectacular, and looking at the weathering on the rocks was interesting. It is amazing how nature can produce such beautiful things.
After the hike we made our way to the sunset viewing area for Uluru. I had seen Uluru on the drive in and tried not to look, but it’s power is mammoth. It is a big rock that dominates an area of virtual flatness. It rises 348m out of nothing. We reached the viewing area in good time to secure a fence line post to view the sunset. It was interesting to watch other more expensive tours arrive in large coach buses, with table linen, fruit and cheese platters, champagne, beer and proper glassware! How high and mighty they must have felt standing next to us, with our dirt, our goon, our camping mugs and our camp stove cooked meal. Frankly, I’d have it no other way. We were having a ball. As the sun set on Uluru — with a clear blue sky behind it — the rock lit up to an amazing glow of red that slowly crept across its face until it was shrouded in darkness. A great show. The only thing that could have made it more breathtaking would have been if a few clouds had graced the sky and provided shades of pink to highlight the view.
Sunrise on the rock was less impressive then sunset but still lovely to see. After the sunrise we went for a walk around the base. Some members of the tour wanted to climb the rock, but due to high winds (25 knots) the climb was closed. The Aboriginal people prefer if you do not climb the rock as it is a sacred spot in there beliefs. The path used to climb was used in men ceremonies.
With Uluru done we headed the 5h back to Alice Springs for the night before heading off again for Darwin. I didn’t see much of Alice Springs (in fact I saw the main drag from various buses, and the inside of Annie’s Place) but feel like I’ve been there via Clelland’s photos. It is a 3 day tour to Darwin, but I will be making a stop in Daly Waters to visit Clelland who has made the pub there his home for a period of 10 weeks.
(view the complete set of photos at my flickr.)
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