Kata Tjuta

Australia 2013 Backblip #9

Awake at 4.30am, for a 5.15am pick up. Travelled out to the park sunrise area in the dark and then had about an hour around sunrise to take more photos of the rock. The tour guides tell you to take photos at one minute intervals and then compare them later - the colour changes aren't always easy to spot!

Next, we were driven all the way around the rocks past the climb start point (the climb was closed) and to the Cultural Centre. Lots of lovely art here. We then purchased some fly nets for our hats and then we drove on to the Mutitjulu waterhole where we had an hours guided walk telling us about this history of the rock from both geological and spiritual perspectives. Then, with another quick stop for photos at the climb base (it was open by this point) we returned to the hotel at about 10am. We then tried to get to a lookout on the site but were beaten back by the heat and the lack of quality mapping.

We then had a quick shopping trip incuding something for dinner later and flopped for a while.

At 2.30pm we were picked up from the hotel and driven out to Kata Tjuta. We went to the dune viewing point for some quick photos before carrying on to Kata Tjuta itself. We did the Valley of the Winds walk to the Karu Lookout. Some of the group carried on to a further lookout, but we were feeling the 35 degree heat and opted to return the to the bus. 

We then moved on to do a short walk at Walpa Gorge including some much needed cooling down on the bus. We picked up the other walkers and moved onto the sunset viewing area where we were attacked by flies whilst watching sunset and having nibbles. We were the only group watching the sunset which made a change from how many there were at Uluru! It was then back to the hotel and bed ready for our early start the following morning.