We decided to leave the caravans and drive to Kata Tjuta and Uluru for the day. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and a great day for travelling. Uluru is approximately 100km from Curtin Springs with Kata Tjuta about another 50km on (although only 32km west of Uluru).
On the way we spotted two camels on the side of the road but didn’t get an opportunity to take any photographs.
Kata Tjuta is absolutely spectacular! We took a large number of photos and the battery in my camera died. I wasn’t too concerned because I had a spare battery with me but I then discovered it was dead as well! I then remembered I hadn’t brought the battery charger with me (as in – I had left it home at Salisbury North). Needless to say I was pretty devastated and very annoyed with myself. Luckily my iPhone takes a reasonable photo (although nothing like the quality of the camera) so I was still able to take some half decent photos.
We did the Kata Tjuta Dune Viewing Walk and then the Walpa Gorge Walk. It was pretty hot in the sun but once inside the Walpa Gorge it was quite pleasant. Kata Tjuta consists of 36 steep-sided domes and they are awe inspiring. We were lucky enough to spot a kangaroo in the gorge, but wildlife so far this trip has been few and far between. At the far end of the Gorge we were having a drink and some nibbles when we spotted two birds appearing to swoop the wall of the Gorge. On looking more closely they were apparently trying to chase off a lizard. We watched this extremely agile lizard climbing the wall (which was almost vertical) until it disappeared into a crack in the wall.
After the walk we drove to Uluru and had lunch at the Cultural Centre which is nestled at the foot of Uluru. We explored the cultural centre and the gift/souvenir shop (spending some money as we went) and debated whether we wanted to climb Uluru or not. The latter won and instead of climbing Uluru we bought a sticker for the caravan which says “I did not climb Uluru”.
We then went to the Sunset Viewing area and got ourselves set up, taking several photos over the approximate 1.5 to 2 hours we had to wait for sunset. Unfortunately about 10 minutes before the sun was due to set a bank of clouds moved in and obscured the sun and we didn’t get the full effect of the sunset at Uluru. Nonetheless Uluru itself is pretty amazing. It is one very large rock!
We met two girls who are backpacking – one from Australia and one from Germany and we chatted with them for quite some time. They were lovely girls having an absolute ball travelling around the northern parts of Australia. They had climbed Ayers Rock and were showing us photographs. I am very glad I decided not to climb the Rock – it looked very very steep in several places and I doubt very much I would have had the courage to get up there!
We left Uluru once it got fully dark (you have to be out of the National Park within 40 minutes of sunset) and we went to the Ayers Rock Resort, mainly to check fuel prices. We didn’t find a service station (and by now it was about 7.30pm and quite dark so finding your way around was difficult). We did find a supermarket and a newsagents that were both open. Luckily we also found some public toilets! We did some shopping in the supermarket and newsagents and then headed back to Curtin Springs. We arrived back here about 9pm, unloaded the car, had a bite to eat and a cup of tea and tried all sorts of things to see if we could charge up the camera batteries – all to no avail!
The photos taken on the iPhone are reasonable and at least I will be able to take photos until we can buy either another camera battery or – better still – another battery charger!
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