Our first experience of a desert!

The 'Mighty' Rock Tour!!

After our epically long journey to Alice Springs, the last thing we wanted to do was sit on another bus for goodness knows how many hours!! But..... That's what we were about to do for 3 days straight! *sigh* So it was short night's sleep as we got picked up from our accommodation at 5:50am to start the Rock Tour.

First stop was Kings Canyon (Watarrka) which is 450 odd km away from Alice, so basically we headed back down the same road (Stuart Highway) that we had driven up the day before! After 5 hours travelling, we arrived at Watarrka National Park for our first 3 hour hike. To break into the hike gently, we climbed up 'heart attack' hill....as the name suggests, not an easy climb! Luckily it wasn't 40 odd degrees otherwise we would have suffered! Once we reached the top, the views made it all worthwhile! We're not going to try and describe the beauty. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so take a look at the photos. The hike revealed to us magnificent views of the Canyon rim, the weathered, buttressed domes of ‘The Lost City’ and the ‘Garden of Eden’ - a sheltered valley with permanent waterholes and lush vegetation....... That's not copy and pasted from a website at all!! Ahem.... For those of you that have 'jumping over a canyon' on your bucket list.. Then be jealous of us! 

Next stop was the challenge of finding firewood.... in the desert.....not really an easy task! That night we enjoyed a sky like we've never seen before, filled with a million stars and even more beautiful, we saw a full moon rise.... Stunning! We were camping literally in the middle of nowhere, under the stars, minus 5 degrees, with a tin shed being the only man build feature in the vicinity. Our guides cooked us chilli con carne on the open flames and then it was an early night, retiring to our swags (heard of the songs 'waltzing Matilda' and the 'swagman' ... Well they're actually written about these swags!!), basically they're Australian camping bed rolls.

Another early morning, up at 5:30am after a long cold night, shivering in minus 2 degrees and sleeping in a sleeping bag which later on we found out was in fact inside out, we huddled round the bonfire eating breakfast before packing up camp and making our way to Uluru- Kata Tjuta National Park. This is an area of cultural significance to the traditional owners, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankuntjatjara Indigenous peoples (who refer to themselves as Anangu). Today we did the 'Valley of the Winds' walking track around Kata Tjuta (aboriginal name for 'The Ulgas'). A 7.4km loop trail that traverses varying desert terrain with wonderful views. It wasn't as arduous as yesterday's walk, but it was still a challenge, especially due to the wind! Kata Tjuta is a striking group of domed rocks about 35km west of Uluru. The 36 domed rocks, shoulder to shoulder, form deep valleys and steep sided gorges. Like Uluru, the Ulgas are a glorious orange colour. Next up was the second walk of the day, the Mala walk at Uluru, Ayers Rock. This was only a short walk but we learnt so much about the Indigenous culture from our experienced tour guide Cooper. For the evening we headed to the sunset lookout point to take as many photos as possible of the changing sky with Australia's iconic rock Uluru (world's largest rock). If you want to appreciate the beauty we saw, take a look at our photos. An awesome day! Yet more star gazing, food and alcohol around the campfire, exhausted from our busy day we curled up in our swags, knowing once again it would be an early rise, this time for the spectacular Uluru sunrise.

This morning we did the Uluru base walk (9km) taking about 2 hours to complete. Just a point of interest, its not the rock itself which is sacred to the indigenous people, rather it is sites upon the rock which are sacred. The best way to understand what Uluru means to the people is to think of it as a book, and the sites upon the rock are chapters of the book, creation time. To understand its the same principle as Christians with the Bible, for the indigenous people Uluru is like their Bible.

That was pretty much the end of our rock tour, and what an awesome time we had!
On the way back to Alice Springs, we dropped everyone bar 5 or us at Ayres Rock Airport. The rest of us enjoyed fish and chips in the desert for lunch.....a camel ride (highly amusing), and drinks at the Rock Bar back in Alice.

All in all a truly memorable adventure. Highly recommended.

Next on the agenda was a 3 hour flight across Western Australia to Perth, where we will be seeing out the rest of our time in Australia. But don't worry, we'll be updating our blog with little stories along the way! :)

See you soon!
P.s. comments are appreciated for our hard work!
 
Xxx