Uluru, Kings Canyon and Kata Jtuta, Northern Territory, Australia

As I was saying, we got collected bright and early Wednesday morning for our Outback Adventure with Wayoutback Travel outfitters. We had arranged this part of the trip with the travel agency here, and we chose it because of it's 3 day 2 night duration, and the being out in the elements with the huge, big skies of central Australia. It was a camping experience, in the middle of winter, so temperatures fluctuated between 1-24 degrees, centigrade. (or 33.8-74.5 f). We packed with layers in mind and in very small bags. They supplied all the sleeping bags and equipment we needed for the nights and meals. The "bus" they drove us in was a converted truck. It was a cross between a 4 wheel drive and an aged Greyhound Bus. When they picked us up it was 30 degrees, which wouldn't have been a problem if they bus had had heat. But it didn't have heat, and it was really cold. We were very uncomfortable riding and being the outspoken American, (the only ones on the trip), I asked why there wasn't heat. I was told air conditioning was more needed than heat. OK....we'll be cold until the sun warms things up.

The Bus

Our guide was a 30 something guy named Rhett. He was pretty quiet on the ride to Uluru, the first stop being a coffee and camel ride stop. Yes, you heard me right, camel rides. Personally, I never ride a camel before noon, so this didn't interest me. The rides were extra, of course.

$10 for 15 minutes

$25 for 30 minutes

$50 for 1 hour

$100 for 2 hours

If anyone has ever ridden on a camel, you would know that 5 minutes is enough. The sign just made us laugh out loud. And there were no takers.

Camels were brought to Australia in 1860 by Afghanistan explorers, 24 in all. They released some of them and now 150 years later, there are 1.2 million feral camels with the numbers doubling every 8-9 years. It's a big problem. They eat up ranges of brush and can drink water holes dry. This over population puts other wildlife at risk, and culling the herds is a necessity. We had no idea that camels even existed in here, but they do and they obviously flourish.

Back on the road after this little stop and we were finally comfortable in the van. The highway to Uluru is a classic Aussie road, 2 lane with no shoulder. Speed limit was 110km/hr, which is about 80mph. The road wasn't too well traveled but when a vehicle came the other way it was only inches from our bus. I'm so glad we didn't drive it ourselves, we heard the road was endlessly long. We made a stop to pick up wood for our campfire, and then on to the "Rock".

We arrived at our Uluru campsite a little after 12pm. We unpacked the van and chose tents. A lunch of sandwiches and drinks were served up and then were off to Uluru. 

Our tent

Lunchroom

Facilities

 The campsite was tidy and the bathrooms were clean. It was more comfortable than I expected in that the tents were heavy canvas with beds and foam mattresses. Rhett tried very hard to convince everyone to try a "swag" and sleep under the stars instead of the tent.

The best way to describe a swag bag is it's a heavy vinyl or canvas bag that you slip your sleeping bag in, and then zip it up around you.  It was predicted to be near 0 or 32 degrees and we opted for the tent. Sorry Rhett!

Off now to see the big red rock. Rhett was not too conversive until the real touring started in the park. He began his guiding at Uluru by telling us about the Aboriginal culture and Uluru's part in their culture. According to Rhett most of their religion and ceremonies are secret, and unless you are an initiated male, they are not shared. There are some stories that were written on the walls of the cultural center, they have been shared with the white man. There is no photography allowed at the Cultural Center, hence, no pictures. Here is a geologists version of how these land masses where formed.

CREATING THE FANS

550 million years ago the Peterman Ranges to the west of Kata Tjuta were taller than they are now. Rainwater flowing down the mountains eroded sand and rock and dropped it in big fan shapes on the surrounding plain.

One fan had mainly water-smoothed rocks. The other fan was mainly sand. Both fans became kilometres thick.

PRESSING THE FANS

Later, 500 millions years ago, the whole area became covered in sea. Sand and mud fell to the bottom of the sea and covered the seabed, including the fans. The weight of the new seabed turned both it and the fans beneath into rock.

The rocky fan became conglomerate rock. The sand fan turned into sandstone.

FOLDING AND TILTING

About 400 million years ago, the sea had disappeared and the whole of Central Australia began to be subjected to massive forces. Some rocks folded and tilted. The rocky fan tilted slightly. The sand fan tilted 90 degrees so the layers of sandstone almost stood on end.

WEARING AWAY

Over the last 300 million years, the softer rocks have eroded away, leaving the parts of the old fans exposed. Kata Tjuta is a hard part of the old rocky fan. Uluru is part of the sand fan, with its beds of sandstone nearly vertical.

The area around Uluru and Kata Tjuta was covered in windblown sand plains and dunes 30,000 years ago.

Uluru, like Kata Tjuta, is the tip of a huge slab of rock that continues below the ground for possibly five to six kilometres.

Rhett, our guide

The Rock is leased to the Australian Government for 90 years, they run the National Park which is situated there. The traditional Aboriginal owners receive $150,000 from the Government to run the Cultural Center and maintenance of the park, which includes  the Kata Tjuta site. Because the of this lease, the climbing of Uluru is not prohibited. It IS discouraged in every way possible, but the chain to help climbers remain. This is a sacred site for the Indigenous people of Australia and most of the tour guides plead with their groups not to climb it. 

About a month ago and Chinese tourist fell at the top of Uluru into a chasm. It took the rescuers 12 hours to reach him and get him out. When found he was in critical condition, remember the temperatures go below freezing as soon as the sun sets.  I don't like heights and it never was even a thought in my head to climb it. I also think you need to respect cultures and they asked that it not be climbed. I will comment about cultural sensitivity. I mentioned Bob Taylor in the previous blog, he was our guide and chef for the Standley Chasm outing we enjoyed. He is Aboriginal. I asked him about Uluru being a sacred site and how to be respectful. His answer was very interesting. He said all of Australia could be sacred sites, that in his culture where there was water was sacred, or food sources, or animals, or shelter....one was not more important than another. He didn't say NOT to climb the Rock, what he said was to respect all this land because it was ALL important to them, and it was ALL theirs.

One thing my son JP warned me about were the fly's in and around Uluru. He was there in Summer, and this is late Winter, but I did buy a fly net while in Alice Springs to put over my head/hat. I was glad to have it, they were bad, not horrendous, and the net helped. John just swatted at them.

The path around Uluru is about 10 km and can be done in 3-4 hours. Honestly, it's kind of a boring walk, very flat and not much but the huge rock looming up. We walked some of it, with commentary, and then drove to interesting points of the landmass. 

We had to get back to the front or the side where we could see the colors change at sunset. I'm sure you've all seen the Rock before, during, and after sunset. But just in case you haven't, here it is.

These are John's photos on a night where the moon was almost full.

We had a twilight glass of wine as part of the tour, every tour group does this and quite frankly it was pretty lack luster. The wine was cheap and the munchies scant. I will say that might be a recurring theme for the food, but I digress.

Back to the campground for dinner and bed. We had an early wake up at 5:30am, so no one was looking to hang out much around the campfire. John and I retired almost as soon as dinner was cleaned up, it had been a long day and we knew the next would be at least as long. I need to add that because we had almost a full moon, the stars were not as plentiful as had hoped. The moon was amazing (we learned it was a "blue moon") but it caused light pollution for the star gazing. We went to bed with Rhett strumming his guitar while the others sang along. He was a good guitarist, voice....not so much, but it was fun to hear it as we drifted off.

We awoke to "Morning has Broken". We dressed, ate, packed and headed to see the sunrise over Uluru. So did everyone else in central Australia. 

Our second day was in Kata Tjuta, or the Olga's. It's the more jagged formation about an hour from Uluru. We were going to do a long hike here and then drive to our campground near Kings Canyon, which was another hour away.  

The walk/hike/near death experience we had here was interesting. We consider ourselves seasoned travelers and in fairly good shape, but this was quite the challenging walk. I should mention that we were the oldest in this group of 21 people, not that we're old, we just were the oldest of this group. We had 2 families with teenagers from the Netherlands, 4-5 young couples, 1 single guy, 2 guys traveling together and us. One of the things that bothered us was Rhett never had us introduce ourselves to each other. We sat for hours on the bus not knowing anyones name. Crazy.... and then we had this very difficult walk where there was time to chat, or commiserate, but no one knew each others names. The walk was on very uneven terrain, and had lots of stones and pebbles that worked just like wheels on a roller skate. It was very vertical and as the morning wore on, very hot and dry. We wore good running shoes with nice soles that gripped the rocks pretty well. I'm glad we had dressed in layers because most of our jackets and vests where tied around our waists. Rhett really hadn't prepared us for the weather, it was a 4 hour walk and we needed no over clothes. We could have left all of them in the bus and not been bothered with them tied around our waists. It was annoying in that he does this 2-3 times a week and he should have known how warm it would get. He guided us through the walk pointing our flora, not too much fauna...but we did see a kangaroo hopping down one of the fans. That was a big highlight.  We were glad to reach the bottom and get back on the bus to head to the next campground and lunch. 

Ochre rocks which are used for face painting

King's Canyon was a 8 km walk which started with 500 steps up. It was a challenging climb that we did without a problem, but some of the younger folk had a tough time getting to the top. That made us feel pretty good, old people with replacement parts did OK. The walk didn't have the pebbles under foot that made it the Olga trek so trecherous, but it was a lot of up and down. We both felt it in our knees, but we managed. This walk had fewer tourists, probably because it was a bit challenging. The vista's were "gorge"ous, sorry.... and we enjoyed the morning.

On of our "nameless" mates from the Netherlands

Garden of Eden

OOOPS!

We did have a fun 3 days in Central Australia, one of those things that we're glad we have done. When we mention where we've been,  most Aussie's say they haven't been there. It is a tourist thing to do but like the Grand Canyon in the US, it's really something to see. With 90% of the population of Australia living near the coast, this is a totally different environment and one we're glad to have seen. I think 3 days was plenty, and seeing Alice Springs was a bonus. I hope you got the feel for the land and the experience.