We woke up at 4:15 so we would be at the park at 5:00AM which was opening time. It was a beautiful ride through the desert as dawn was breaking coloring the desert and Uluru/Ayers Rock. Unfortunately by this point Hendrik’s camera had totally broken and was unsalvageable and mine was also slowly deteriorating and refused to turn on. It seemed to only turn on when I didn’t actually need it to but when I did it wouldn’t. So unfortunately we don’t have pictures of this morning.
The sun had not yet risen when we started the Valley of the Winds hike around the Olgas/kata Tjuta and the earth was still cool. We had loads of water with us this time but it was pretty unnecessary since it was cool and there are 3 water stops along the hike. It was a beautiful hike and often strenuous. There were signs everywhere that depicted a stick figure falling on rocks which we thought was funny. The walk only took us about 2 hours and progressively it became hotter and hotter. We passed by many people just beginning the walk when we had ended and thought to ourselves that we definitely wouldn’t want to start in this heat. It wasn’t even 9:00AM and it was already hot. It was a gorgeous hike and I definitely recommend getting up early for it because the switch of colors and temperature from night to day are amazing.
We were glad we had made good time because we needed a shower and we would still make breakfast and yes buffet breakfasts excite me. I have to admit as food goes the Ayers Rock Resort was one of the nicest (far better than at Kings Canyon Resort) and I enjoyed the dinner as well as brekky. After breakfast we had a few hours to kill before we had to catch the plane so I just surfed the internet and hung out by the pool.
The Uluru Airport is tiny and is there solely for a rock. I thought that was pretty funny that a rock can have its own airport. We arrived in Cairns in the evening, booked a Great Barrier Reef tour on Reef Magic for the day after next, and just relaxed.
