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| Mt Conner |
Too early in the morning I was
collected by a bus that finished up with 20 passengers + driver and
drove for about four hours arriving at Yulara, near Uluru, for lunch.
Lunch was the same as on the Western Macdonnell Ranges tour – just
as well it was good, a lovely fresh salad roll, fruit, and juice.
There'd been the morning tea stop and the look-out stop at Mt Conner,
an impressive mesa standing in solitary isolation, unlike those I saw
in the US on the California Zephyr train journey which had plenty of
similarly magnificent companions.
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| Uluru Walks Map |
Then we set off for Uluru itself. Would
I do the walk, wouldn't I, would I take up the offer of being driven
to the half-way mark? I decided I couldn't cop out at the first
opportunity so off I set, optimistically but with fingers also
crossed.
The rock is so impressive from a distance but was hard to
take in up close. But there were the unexpected features – rock
paintings, a grinding 'pan' used by aboriginal women, chunks that
seemed to have sheered off, the tracks of waterfalls that cascade in
a deluge, cracks caused by lightning strikes and, surprisingly to me,
a water hole with a very faint trickle of water running down the rock
into it.
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| Mutitjulu water hole |
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| Rock art |
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| Grinding 'pan' |
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| Chunk of rock |
I felt really chuffed when I made it to
the end of the 10.6km base walk circuit. And what's more, I was still able to walk an extra 300m to
reach the loo! 19,100 steps for the day.
In spite of an emphatic spiel from our terrific guide,
one person on tour climbed to the top of the chain on the rock climb.
Whether out of respect or simple fear, no one else attempted to climb Uluru. I hadn't
realised that at handover to the aboriginal people, it was written
into the deal that the rock remain open to climbs because the
government feared tourism would fall and that it can be closed to
climbing once the number of visitors climbing drops to 20%. Currently
it's down to 28% apparently, and tourism has boomed in spite of the
request not to climb.
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| Uluru sunset |
After the walk it was a quick drive to
the sunset viewing area. To be honest, the changing colours of sunset
wasn't all that exciting. Perhaps by then I was quaking at the
thought of the rapidly approaching night sleeping outdoors in a
sleeping bag for the first time in my life. First there was chicken
stir fry for dinner. But it couldn't be put off any longer – the
lovely hot shower, shivering in the cold when the taps were turned
off, then into the swag.
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| Chicken stir fry |
