We got up early this morning to view a sunrise and there was not a cloud in the sky. The gale force winds of yesterday were gone. It is an icy cold morning and the huge crowd that had gathered were heavily rugged up against the cold. Some people had little portable gas stoves and were cooking sausages and eggs etc.
We waited and eventually Uluru began to change colour and become a brilliant orange colour as the sun lit it up. Quite an awesome sight.
We left Uluru and headed over to the Olgas or Kata Tjuka. There are a couple of walks that you can do. We chose one walk that takes you up over some rock and you get a magnificent view back over the valley and the walks continues on to Walpa Gorge, a small picturesque waterhole. From there we went to the Valley of the Winds walk. We didn’t complete the walk but went as far as the first lookout.
We then returned to Uluru and found a nice picnic spot for lunch and were soon joined by some fellow travellers. We have met a lot of people along the way and often see people several times along the route. Everyone is very friendly. Most people wave as they pass you on the road.
I cant get over how green everything is. I expected it to be so much drier with much less vegetation. I thought it would be just sand dunes and Spinifex. You’ll see from the photos, there’s one section on the walk around the base of Uluru that is very lush and green. I was very surprised.
Uluru is amazing when you get up close to it. It has caves with drawings and paintings, a waterhole and huge gouged out holes, the inside of which look like honeycomb. There are gentle folds and creases and deep crevices. There are small shrubs and bushes that grow somehow in a crevice or a hole. You can see where water has cascaded down and left a darkish stain. At any time during the day and from any angle the rock is for ever changing colour. The most dramatic changes are of course, at sunrise and sunset.
The more you walk around the rock and get up close to it, the more shapes, textures and colours you see.
It rained quite heavily overnight which surprised us.
Our first day at Uluru was so windy that the climb to the top was closed. I only needed to look at it to know that there was no way I was going up there. Colin thought he would probably climb, however the next day when the walk was open we watched people climbing. The first section has no rail to hold on to and people were crawling on the hands and knees. Some people coming back down were really struggling with this non hand rail portion, several people sat on the rock and “bottom” walked down. After watching these people Colin decided not to climb either.Today the temperature climbed to 34 degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so we knew that sunset would something really special tonight. Hundreds of people lined up along the fence at the sunset viewing spot. Eventually the sun began to disappear on the horizon and the shadow crept up over the rock until it was completely in shadow
We waited and eventually Uluru began to change colour and become a brilliant orange colour as the sun lit it up. Quite an awesome sight.
We left Uluru and headed over to the Olgas or Kata Tjuka. There are a couple of walks that you can do. We chose one walk that takes you up over some rock and you get a magnificent view back over the valley and the walks continues on to Walpa Gorge, a small picturesque waterhole. From there we went to the Valley of the Winds walk. We didn’t complete the walk but went as far as the first lookout.
We then returned to Uluru and found a nice picnic spot for lunch and were soon joined by some fellow travellers. We have met a lot of people along the way and often see people several times along the route. Everyone is very friendly. Most people wave as they pass you on the road.
I cant get over how green everything is. I expected it to be so much drier with much less vegetation. I thought it would be just sand dunes and Spinifex. You’ll see from the photos, there’s one section on the walk around the base of Uluru that is very lush and green. I was very surprised.
Uluru is amazing when you get up close to it. It has caves with drawings and paintings, a waterhole and huge gouged out holes, the inside of which look like honeycomb. There are gentle folds and creases and deep crevices. There are small shrubs and bushes that grow somehow in a crevice or a hole. You can see where water has cascaded down and left a darkish stain. At any time during the day and from any angle the rock is for ever changing colour. The most dramatic changes are of course, at sunrise and sunset.
The more you walk around the rock and get up close to it, the more shapes, textures and colours you see.
It rained quite heavily overnight which surprised us.
Our first day at Uluru was so windy that the climb to the top was closed. I only needed to look at it to know that there was no way I was going up there. Colin thought he would probably climb, however the next day when the walk was open we watched people climbing. The first section has no rail to hold on to and people were crawling on the hands and knees. Some people coming back down were really struggling with this non hand rail portion, several people sat on the rock and “bottom” walked down. After watching these people Colin decided not to climb either.Today the temperature climbed to 34 degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so we knew that sunset would something really special tonight. Hundreds of people lined up along the fence at the sunset viewing spot. Eventually the sun began to disappear on the horizon and the shadow crept up over the rock until it was completely in shadow
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