Apr 28, Uluru and Kata Tjuta

Super busy day, started by watching the sunrise onto Uluru. The sun comes up and lights up the rock bit by bit, a lovely experience. We shared it with several hundred other people. There were busloads of them, plus those of us in our own vehicles.

After sunrise we drove to Uluru and had breakfast. While we were eating, buses pulled up and scores of people went up the path to the top. Aborigines don't like people climbing Uluru. It is a sacred place to them and they feel it is just not right to climb it. Also, they welcome people to visit, but don't want them to be injured or die and people have died from falls and heat stroke.

We went for a ranger guided walk. The 90 minute walk turned into two and a half hours and it was all interesting. He was Aboriginal from Brisbane. One thing he talked about was Songlines. He went on a trip to a waterhole two and a half hours away with an older Aborigine. They were on a road, then turned off into the bush. When they did, the older man started singing. He sang and as he did he would signal the driver to turn this way and that. They did that for an hour and a half and found the waterhole, and it was barely a foot across. The Songlines are the audio maps of the country.

Then we walked around the base of Uluru. It is 10 km around. We had heard how it changed color in different light and it did. And the look of it changed, sometimes smooth, sometimes pocked with holes and streaked with black (from water running down the surface). There were also sacred areas around the base and no photography was allowed in those places.

We didn't finish until 12:30 and it was getting hot. I don't think we've mentioned the flies. They are smaller than houseflies, bigger than gnats, very numerous and aggressive. Peter had given me his fly net and Samson bought one in Coober Pedy. There must be a trick to wearing them, but I keep getting flies inside mine.

We drove back to the campground to fill up with water and shower. Then we drove about 50 km out to Kata Tjuta. That means "many heads". These formations were very different. There were many domes, some large, some small and the rock was different. It was beautiful and we took a short hike to a lookout.

We stopped at the Cultural Centre and I looked at the exhibits that told about the local culture. I wish we had more time to learn more about it. After all they've survived 60,000 years and there is much they could teach us. I bought a dot painting and found out that the artist lived at a settlement inside the park.

We stopped for more fuel and headed east. We're in the same rest area we stayed
In before we went to Kings Canyon. We're in the land of great distances. This is Sunday night and since Saturday morning we've traveled over 700km.

Pictures - Uluru at sunrise, Kata Tjuta at sunrise, Samson in fly net, Jeanne in full regalia, Samson & Jeanne At Kata Tjuta, landscape