05:00 started our day - with a hasty walk (chair in hand) up to the lookout to catch sunrise over Ayers Rock. It looked great, and made me look forward to watching the sunrise later (and also look forward to breakfast). Breakfast was a great combination of cereal, bacon, eggs and bread, and this was to last us through our trip to Kata Tjuta.
Kata Tjuta is the collection of rocks over which we'd watched the sunset last night. It's tallest boulder is taller than Uluru, at over 500 m. Still red, the rock is a little more vegetated which adds variety. Our track took us through a few o the boulders, then round in a loop of part of the outside. The track involved walking over many loose red boulders, which was challenging but fun. The lookout gave views out from between two boulders which was cool too.
Peter saw Euro-wallaby.
Lunch back at the campsite consisted of cold meat and salad, perfect for the conditions. Which thankfully have cooled down to a breezy and cloudy 30-35 degrees - yay!
After lunch we had 'chill time' for a couple of hours. This has never happened for us before so I was a little puzzled as to what to do. I decided to go for a quick dip and then read a little of my John Grisham book, which I'd book swapped for in Alice Springs.
All too soon, we were back on the bus and off to the cultural centre. Here I learned about the aboriginal myths surrounding Uluru and Kata Tjuta. The information also helped explain some of the cave paintings we saw yesterday. There was also a really interesting film about the history of the rock and the surrounding land. This showed how the land had been taken by the white men to form a National Park, and was only given back to the aboriginal people in the 80s. They then leased it back to the National Park Authority. A short cultural walk followed, where we saw more caves in the rock, as well as waterholes and another set of paintings, which were used by the aboriginals for teaching.
Almost time for sunset, we settled ourselves on stools in a viewing area, with cider (for me, Peter is feeling a bit meh) and nibbles. The sunset was pretty well non-existent due to the cloud and welcome rain showers, but we had a fun time socialising and taking photos anyway.
We returned to camp for dinner of spag bol, and an early bedtime. I arranged my swag outside as per yesterday night, and actually slept for a couple of hours! This was soon thwarted by rain, which awoke me to a necessary loo trip, after which I moved my swag undercover. Here I enjoyed the breeze that came with the storm, but didn't manage any more sleep. I was more successful at big swatting though, not picking up a single new bite all night - win. I reckon I've been bitten by a spider on my leg as there is a double bite mark. Peter also saw a candidate spider lurking around in the evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment