Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So we arrived in the Desert after a short hop over from Perth. The heat hit us as soon as we stepped off the plane. Its hard to explain, but we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere...and to be fair..we were! Just miles and miles of red soil, and trees!
Ayers rock, basically consists of The big red rock (uluru), the Olgas, and Ayers rock Resort, which is like a mini town of hotels, restaurants and shops located about 15 minutes drive from the rock.
We were warned about all the local wildlife we might encounter during our stay, and reminded that 5 of the most deadly snakes in the world could be found here! not to mention the Dingos and the spiders! but no fear! ( lets just say, my face lit up when we were told we were staying on the 2nd floor and not the ground floor! )
So many tours, and only a couple of days to do them, we had to choose quickly over a cool drink and a rather tasty piece of chocolate mud cake. We decided to take a trip to the Olgas on the first day.
So up at 4:15am to make the bus pick up at 5am. We were taken to a viewing point near the Olgas, to watch the sunrise. ( unfortunately it wasnt good weather, so the sun was hiding behind the clouds) The Olgas, also known as Kata Tjuta which means many heads consists of 30 domed hills. The tallest being mount Olga, standing at 1500 feet in height.
The photos do not really do it justice, Its just breathtaking, I think more than Ayers Rock!
After eating our soggy pain au chocolat, we were dropped off at the base of the Olgas, where we commenced our 8.4km walk. (at 6am) . The walk is quite a challenging one, steep, rough terrain, falling rocks, but so enjoyable, its supposed to take 3 hours to walk around, but we kept stopping to take photos, as it was so beautiful! As the sun broke away from the clouds, the ever changing colours on the domes was spectacular, going from brown, red, orange and yellow. The heat was also starting to rise. The walk took us through the valley of the winds, with an amazing view.
4 hours later, looking tired, but still blown away by the Olgas, we returned to our hotel to catch up on sleep.
That same evening we booked ourselves onto the sunset Ayers Rock trip, the weather had been getting worse during the day, and it had started to rain by the time we arrived at the rock but the rock still looked impressive. We took a walk through the aboriginal history centre to learn about the sacred history of the rock, then took a walk around the rock. I was still checking for snakes and dingos! We could not get over the size of the rock, and to put it into context, it takes about 3/4 hours to walk around the base.
The sun did come out, and so we did see the changing colours, a really memorable experience! Onto Queensland next!
- comments