Sunrise, Kuniya Piti Hike, Kata Tjuta Hike, Field of Light

The Hop-On Hop-Off bus was our best option for getting around the area so after our night at the Sounds of Silence Dinner with the bottomless glasses of sparkling wine and beer, we stumbled out before dawn and onto the bus which would take us to a sunrise viewing of Uluru. Our driver, who called himself Snakebite, looked exactly like you would expect someone called Snakebite to look. I think we could understand maybe half of what he said. He deposited us near a viewing platform where we could watch the sun rise with hundreds of other people with stern instructions to be back at the bus at 7:30.

The sky was just beginning to lighten when we arrived. We jealously eyed a group of Japanese tourists who were sipping hot cups of coffee.

The crowd watched intently as the monolith slowly revealed itself. I had foolishly imagined that the sun would actually rise from behind the rock, but the platform is not facing east so the sun rises far off to the side.

We could also see Kata Tjuta in the distance.

The area was surprisingly green considering that it only receives about 12 inches of rain a year. Another surprise was that there are lots of trees.

We would have liked to stay longer at the sunrise viewing platform, but Snakebite had been quite specific about the time we must be back on the bus so we took a couple of pictures of each other, and climbed back onboard. The Hop-On Hop-Off bus has a very limited schedule so if you miss it, you're in trouble. Snakebite counted heads and discovered he was two people short so he drove slowly around the parking lot looking for the stragglers. They did not appear, so he shrugged his shoulders and we rode on.

The bus made 4 stops around the base of Uluru. The first stop was a small Cultural Centre, and the second was the beginning of a 1.5 hour hike called the Mala Walk. I hadn't done any research on area hikes, so we impulsively decided to get off at the third stop called Kuniya Piti which caused Snakebite to look up in surprise. Several people had gotten off at the Mala Walk, but we were the only ones getting off at Kuniya Piti. I wondered if we were were making a mistake, but the bus had already stopped and Snakebite was telling us that he would be back in 2 hours to pick us up.

After the bus roared away, we read the information posted at the bus stop and learned that Kuniya Piti is a site sacred to aboriginal men. There were confusing signs which requested that people not take pictures at certain points. I think we complied, but like I said, the signs were confusing.

The day was warming up and the flies were waking up, but they weren't unbearable yet. We walked around the base for about 1-1/2 hours. A walk around the entire base is supposed to take 3.5 hours, but I think it would take longer. Although it's very flat, the risks of heat exhaustion and dehydration make the hike challenging. We were happy with our shorter walk and ready to return to the resort for coffee and breakfast.

When Snakebite returned to pick us up, he was the only one on the bus. We sped down the highway to the fourth stop.

We hadn't seen many other people since the sunrise viewing, but suddenly there were hordes of them. Cars were parked everywhere and a line of people was snaking slowly up the rock. We were astounded. Snakebite launched into an angry monologue which I think was about foolish tourists risking injury or death and not listening to the desires of the aboriginal owners of the monolith. He was even harder to understand when he was agitated. I nodded my head and made sympathetic sounds.

It seems that people used to climb all over Uluru, and although a chain was installed in this location to help people make the climb, 37 people have died here since the government began keeping records. Because of the sacred nature of the rock, the aboriginal people have requested that people stay off it, and the climb will be closed in October, 2019 so people are rushing to climb to the top before then.

No one got on at the bus stop so we carried on to the resort. Snakebite kept up his unintelligible monologue as he bounced about in the drivers seat to emphasize his feelings. At one point, he was driving standing up. It was quite the performance.

I didn't get a picture of the people climbing so I grabbed this off the web. This is exactly how it looked that day.

After coffee and breakfast and a brief rest, we boarded the afternoon Hop-On Hop-Off bus to the other large rock formation in the area - Kata Tjuta. Our driver this time was a laid-back Australian named Trevor. We stopped first at a viewing platform called the Dune Lookout. The flies up to this point had been a mere annoyance, but now they were ridiculously prolific and we found ourselves enviously eyeing people with fly net hats just as we had enviously eyed the Japanese tourists with hot coffee in the morning. Here is a picture of Kata Tjuta and one of Uluru we took before we quickly returned to the bus.

After that, there was a choice of being dropped off for a 3 hour hike to Valley of the Winds or a 1 hour walk at Walpa Gorge. We had been planning on doing the short walk, but the endesss onslaught of flies was discouraging. Trevor was planning to sit in the bus for an hour at Walpa Gorge, so we thought we might just sit there with him, but in the end we decided to get out and take some pictures and we just kept walking further and further until it was time to return to the bus.

Here are some closeups of the rock face.

That's Walt looking out at the dessert.

We spent the rest of our time at the resort wandering about and attending some of the cultural workshops. We also enjoyed a presentation of the story of "The Eagle, the Cockatoo & the Crow" at the theatre.

On our final evening at the resort, we took a bus to a field covered with over 50,000 lights. The exhibition is the work of the artist Bruce Munro. Standing in the midst of the desert surrounded by all those lights with a skyful of stars overhead was awe-inspiring.