Going Outback, 600mio years back. Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park

Dec 19-23, 2020

Australia being as huge as it is, if we don’t want to spend a big chunk of our 6 weeks on the road between visiting our good friends in Sydney and Melbourne (with the bonus of going to the Australian Open thrown in), we finally settle on Uluru as a must-do destination. Once I dive into the reservation, I am a little less enthusiastic: it seems like a giant tourist trap – you can only stay in a resort (Ayer’s Rock Resort) with several different hotels/motels/campgrounds all next to each other on offer. I pick one and hope for the best. (Which turns out to be the case because the resort is actually very well executed, as a proper little town with great logistics.) December 19th we fly off from Sydney the equivalent distance of going from Damascus to Vienna, roughly, and as we land, Anjali already cries out in delight: the views of “the Rock” in the midst of the glowing red sand are simply sublime. Ayer’s Rock/Uluru is practically smack in the centre of Australia, in the middle of the Outback, the red earth and known to be extremely hot during the summer months. To take that to the max, it turns out that we chose the hottest week in recorded history to come here: a cool 43 degrees when we land with temperatures soaring up to 49 the coming days…..! But that is a minor detail because Uluru really is as magnificent and absolutely breathtaking as we imagined. And we discover Kata Tjuta, the neighbouring rock range, which is just as, if not even more, beautiful.

The first morning we have a walk with an aboriginal ranger, the Mala Walk. The troubled history in the region is saddening, you really wonder what puts people up to such inhumane and cruel behaviour. The Ananga aborigines who are estimated to have lived around Uluru as far as 10,000 years back – and as happened all around Australia – were trucked off to reserves where they were “re-educated” by the colonists, and that in more ways than just in terms of their beliefs, history and customs. Suddenly they were converted to reserve food, consisting of flour, sugar, tea and butter leading to the typical western cardio-vascular diseases and with type 2 diabetes at sky high levels, today more than ever. Now, they forbid climbing Uluru in respect of the aboriginal wish (only certain elders of the local Anangu tribe were allowed to mount the rock, yet the government installed a chain in the 60s to climb up in clear disrespect of this tradition, subject of contention ever since, yet the policy not to climb has only been put in place a few months ago, in Oct 2019) and most of the tours hardly talk about aboriginal history because apparently the elders requested that only they relate certain stories – it feels a bit like a “cheap and cheerful” approach to silence resistance, but maybe I am just being cynical. Let me better get back to alluring Uluru.

That afternoon we are booked into a “Red Reptile” presentation, which conveniently takes place at 1pm at 48 degrees in the camel park. Even the reptiles zonk out in this heat! We discover the Centralian Blue Tongue lizard and the Western Blue Tongue which is a skink, i.e. looks more like a short fat snake with tiny legs than a lizard. They have blue tongues to scare predators and in the dry desert landscape they get most of their moisture from juicy insects. The Bearded Dragon is a funky little fellow, which Vyas finds so cool that he wants one now as a pet. He has surprisingly sharp eyes, and can locate a predatory bird from as far as 80m away.

The Carpet python, which the children got to hold in the end (and which tried to give Anjali an extra little cuddle) gets to be 2.5m, and weigh about 8kg, becoming as thick as a muscular arm. She is a constrictor. She does not have good eye sight, but can see shapes and compensates with her tongue that can trail scent and she has heat sensing pits around her jaw which tracks warm bodies with high precision even if she cannot see them well.

The Woma python doesn’t climb, and does not have heat sensing pits. She is very significant to aborigines , and shows up a lot in aboriginal art. She eats other snakes and lizards so stays close to the ground. She is immune to venom from other snakes . 

Keen to discover the rest of the joint Uluru-Kata Tjuta park some more, we wake up at 4am the next morning to do the Valley of the Winds walk – with the heat we want to finish before 10am, ideally. The walk is indicated as 7.4km, but 3-4 hours and tough so still half asleep we get to the park entry even before it opens at 5am. It is a bit of drive out to Kata Tjuta, which, curiously, I had never heard of before. The 36 domes are also known as the Olgas, after the tallest peak Mt Olga. Kata Tjuta literally means “many heads” and the sight, just 25km West of Uluru, is stunning against the flatness all around. By 5:45am we are all set and off, in refreshing 28 degrees. We get why it is called the Valley of the Winds, they almost knock us off our feet. The rising light over the rocks is absolutely gorgeous and as we scramble between the rocks towering above us in hues ranging from dusty gold to orange to bright red with the sun throwing eery shadows and the wind howling, I feel humbled. Even in this arid, brutally tough environment, nature creates facets of beauty in a concert of elements that is beyond perfection. I love this picture of Anjali about mid-walk – alone, facing the magnitude in awe.

The walk is actually pretty easy, probably helped by the fact that we complete it before the heat arrives, which also has the added benefit of us being completely alone out here. We finish within a little over 2 hours and head back to our hotel for a swim and a nap.

I was originally worried that the four days I had booked would be too long, but we actually quite enjoy being able to just take it easy and not rush through. All the more since the site has some beautiful museums, such as the Natural History museum with lots of fun facts. We also get to do a few Bushtucker tours, with a ranger taking us across the garden to explain the local bush plants and how to cook them. I particularly take to the wattle seed which has a lovely nutty flavour.

On our last morning we try our luck again for a sunrise over Uluru – our attempt at catching a glowing sunset was thwarted by some heavy clouds. Nilay is keen to join us and hops right out of bed at 4:50am. The sunrise is, indeed, beautiful, though the fact that it is already quite crowded on the platform takes away a bit of the magic. On the drive back out we suddenly see a group of dromedaries galloping around – needless to say that that made Nilay’s morning!

It’s time for us to leave again – Uluru really was a beautiful stop, we are delighted that we came!

One Reply to “Going Outback, 600mio years back. Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park”

  1. Hi guys ! Love the photos, love the views. Seems to continue to be a great adventure. Please Peanut’s family, write more !

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