Up Close with Uluru

On Wednesday we decided to spend a few hours driving and walking at the rock, come home and then go back to view Uluru at Sunset, we didn’t fancy a Sunrise viewing. At the sunset viewing point we found a few trees facing the western side of Uluru and BBQ’d some snags for lunch. It was quite restful in the shade after we had covered everything with Aerogard. At this time of day all the crevices in the rock show up quite clearly.

We then drove around Uluru and walked in to Mujitjulu Waterhole. It was a short pleasant walk which was extremely cool once in the shadow of Uluru. Lots of trees around the waterhole and the path in and plenty of green grasses. Before we set off on the walk we took a photo of Uluru in the early morning shadows.

The photos below are of Uluru at the waterhole and nearby.

The waterhole was dry but apparently there is permanent water here so I guess if you dug down you would find water. The area was very green and the shapes on Uluru were interesting and added another dimension to the walk. We did walk a kilometre or so along the walk around the rock to observe some of the rock formations and shapes. There was a section where you were asked not to take photos and some international tourists were taking photos against the wishes of the aborigines as there were sacred sites in that part of Uluru. I suggested that they would not do that at Sacre Coeur in Paris where you are also asked to not take photos. They did apologise and move on.

This face of Uluru looks a bit like a lions face with bared teeth.

We walked back to the car and drove around Uluru where there were some interesting sculptures eroded in the rock.

From here we went to the area of the rock that people used to climb, we did think that Uluru looked so much better without a trail of “Ants” climbing up and down. You can still see where the walk was located, no doubt over time that will heal. The shot below is a panorama and shows Uluru sloping up on the left, which it doesn’t.

So from here it was off home to return for a picnic of nibbles and champers (real stuff courtesy of Deen) while we watched Uluru in the sunset. We really enjoyed the food and the view and as it was cooling the flys were no much of an issue. We arrived and set up at 5pm, someone commented to Deen about this photo she posted online, “How come you’re sitting next to Kevin Rudd?”

The next series of photos show the progression from 12.30 when we had a picnic lunch to about 6.45. The times of the photos are below each one.

So that was Uluru. For the dimensionally minded Uluru is 9.4 Km in circumference and 348 metres in height. It is not Australia’s largest monocline, that honour goes to Mt Augustus in Western Australia, which is also the world’s largest rock. Mt Augustus is 1-1/2 times the size of Uluru and 717 metres high, circumference of 49 Km and it’s granite is 1,650 million years old. Mt Augustus is located 460 Km east of Carnarvon in W.A. It is not so renowned as Uluru as it’s harder to get to and is not just a big bare rock with vegetation on parts of it.

Tomorrow we are off the tour Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). If you would like to receive an email when I publish a new blog just enter your email address in the box below, you will not be bombarded with emails.