Gismo Queen and her King

Day 46 - Yulara (Uluru and Kata Tjuta)

Ahh, the sleep in was luxurious this morning. Although there was a fair bit of traffic at 5:30am as many headed out to watch the sunrise over Uluru or Kata Tjuta.

We relaxed over breakfast and internet catch ups and headed over to the Yulara Visitor Information Centre and town centre mid morning. Yulara is a resort centre built in 1983 to stop the camping and other accommodation that had sprung up close to the Rock in the '70's and '80's and was destroying the environment. Following the formation of the National Park, all accommodation was relocated to this new town outside the National Park.

We had lunch in the town centre at a cafe that operates an indigenous training program. It was very good. We then headed out to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), doing the dune walk to view the 36 domes of Kata Tjuta from the east before we drove around the western side and got much better photos!
The Uluru sunset viewing was planned for tonight so we all met back at the caravans and packed our dinner tools as the advice was to arrive at the sunset parking area early to get a good spot. So we were all set up by 4pm and had the percolated coffee and teapot boiling for afternoon tea shortly afterwards. This was followed by drinks and nibblies.
How civilised are we?! We all took it in turns with the binoculars to look at the vegetation growing up the rock, the rock holes and collapses, the water falls when it rains and the path of the climb (although the local Anangu people prefer that visitors don't climb it anymore) as the sun slowly sank behind us.
The colours of the rock changing were quite amazing, and again, photography probably doesn't capture it. Here are a couple of the shots I tried to get (Lisa and Paul were better set up with a tripod!).

Ten year old Harrison had the comment of the night - as the rock got redder he said "it's really starting to look like a rock now"!!!

We finished our steak, sausages and salad and packed up, by which time it was pretty dark. Back to the park to do dishes and relax.

posted by Tracey @ 9:22 pm