Kata Tjuta (Uluru Trip Day 2)

Just a reminder: this is the second post of several describing my experience of our Uluru trip. If you haven’t already, go read the post “Alice Springs (Uluru Trip Day 1)” before continuing here.

  On Sunday morning, the 6^th, we woke up at 5 am so that those of us who didn’t shower the night before could shower, and then get some of the continental breakfast (which consisted of toast and butter). Then at 6:10am the tour bus picked us up.

  So first you should know that we chose the cheaper option of tours that is aimed more at backpackers between the ages of 18 and 30. By Tour Bus I mean a rugged compact van that could (uncomfortably) carry 24 passengers and one driver. Our guide, a young woman named Justine, then drove us into the outback (with a few stops to pick up more people, then to the shop where we paid for the small portion of the tour that we had not yet paid, and pick up some last-minute supplies like water bottles and hire sleeping bags).

  After driving South out of Alice Springs, we turned right onto the Stuart Highway; this was one of two turns we would be making during the drive to Uluru. Again, the landscape was a great experience, but you quickly got used to it since it was the same for the whole 500km drive.

  We stopped about every 1.5 hours, and our first stop was at a place called Stuart’s Well (if my memory is as good as I’d like to think it is). At Stuart’s Well we got to pet a Dingo, and see some other animals, but the highlight was the optional camel ride. For $5 I got to ride a camel around the perimeter of a 50 x 30 meter pen, with the camels running for the last 50 meters of it. That wasn’t a very long ride for $5, but it was still worth the experience of riding a camel.

"Watch out - they spit!"

An interesting note that we were told is that Australia is the only country that still has wild camels. They were introduced as pack animals, but became obsolete when cars became available. The few owners who had camels were told to kill them, but since they loved their camels they instead let them loose. But the camels, that are perfectly adapted for this climate and have no natural predators, quickly populated the outback. Today, they have a population around 1 million, and since they have been a nuisance (eating crops and breaking down fences holding in cattle) they have been gunned down. Ok, back to the trip…

  After the long trip out, we ate a late lunch at the site that we would spend the night at. Then we drove into the park that is the home of Uluru. It took about 40 minutes to get to Kata Tjuta, a rock formation not unlike Uluru, but instead of one massive rock, it is several domed like rocks clustered together, which makes for some very beautiful base hikes.

Kata Tjuta

  In the settlement between the white settlers and the Aboriginal People in relative recent history, the Aboriginal People were given the option of giving full rights to the government for tourism of either Uluru or Kata Tjuta. They chose to give over Uluru and still occasionally close Kata Tjuta so that some of the Aboriginal People can use it for their sacred rituals. To simplify it: it seems to me that the Australian Government had returned all the land of the national park (including Kata Tjuta, Uluru and the surrounding areas) to the proper tribes of Aboriginal People under the condition that they would rent the land (or parts of it) back to the Australian Government unconditionally for the following 99 years.

After a great 2.5 hour walk into Kata Tjuta and back, we quickly drove over to an Uluru lookout where we watched a beautiful sunset at Uluru. Because of our location, we got to see the rock turn rust red as the sun rays rock through the clouds as it set, and if we turned around we saw the beauty of the sun setting behind and between Kata Tjuta in the distance.

Note: in this photo you see the trail that you would climb if you climbed Uluru. The trail itself is hard (if not impossible in this photo) to see, but it is on the large root leading towards the camera (with the big shadow on the left side of it as we look at it)

It is hard to see, but the sun is just over Kata Tjuta in the distance

After that we drove back to our campsite where we ate dinner, hung out around the campfire, got to know our fellow campers a bit more, then headed for bed. That was our first night in an infamous Swag. The simplest way to describe a Swag, is a heavy canvas trash bag that has a zipper in one side, and has a mattress built into it. They do not protect you from the weather like a tent does, but it was comfy and we got to stare up at the stars as we fell asleep.

Despite the long drive, it was a very entertaining day. Walking through Kata Tjuta and seeing the sunset were well worth the $350 I spent getting there.

Keep tuned in for the rest of the trip…

Cheers!