To the Outback: Uluru and King's Canyon Tour
You know how when you have an early morning flight, you tend to wake up a thousand times throughout the night to make sure you don’t oversleep?
Well, this didn’t happen before my Uluru Tour with Mulgas Adventures. I had an amazing night’s sleep, proceeding to sleep through every single alarm and numerous phone calls from the guide. Waking in a panic, I immediately called and in an amazing turn of luck, the group was still in phone service so the bus pulled to the side of the road to wait while another guide picked me up at the hostel and rushed me out. A million thanks, Mulgas saved the day!!
Six of us drove the 5 hours from Alice Springs to Uluru. While we waited for the rest of our group’s flights to land, we celebrated hump day a day early with camel rides. It honestly made me a little sad - it felt like a pony ride at a fair. Camels can’t wear bridles as it interferes with chewing cud, so instead they use nose pegs. Under the heat of the sun, flies out in masses, the camels waited patiently for us to get on and circle around the paddock.
Once we had our full group of 21, we headed into Uluru National Park. The area used to be called Ayers Rock after the South Australian Premier, but in 1985, the land was given back to the Anangu people and reverted to the original cultural name of Uluru. The park is a World Heritage site for both natural and cultural values. The rock itself was created 600 million years ago and is 348 meters tall and 9.6 km around the base. BIG ROCK.
We walked around the base, learning Dreamtime Stories of the four ancestral beings who helped form traditional law and custom of the people. Several sites are sacred, only to be seen by men or only to be seen by women; for this, they ask that tourists do not take pictures of those areas in order to honor their culture. We enjoyed sunset with some bubbles and snacks before heading back to camp for burritos. My type of night!
“As darkness falls and Uluru is thrown into silhouette, Field of Light illuminates. As far as the eye can see gentle rhythms of colour light up the desert.” The website does this installation justice in both language and visual images, as I quickly learned that my own words and camera in no way could. That night, a small group of us visited the Field of Light, an installation by the British artist Bruce Munru. With 50,000 spindles of light and covering more than seven football fields, the scale took my breath away.
A 5am wake up call got us all up and moving for sunrise over the rock. Wrapped in sleeping bags for warmth, our group had front row seats to sit comfortably with the best view while 50 other people jostled to be able to see or take a picture.
We headed to Kata Tjuta into the Valley of the Wind. The ochre-red of the sandstone domes immediately captures the eye. By starting early we were able to be at the front of the crowds - winding our way through the domes, over slight rock scrambles, and around creek beds.
Who knew you could accomplish so much before 11am?!
After another 3 hour drive to King’s Canyon, we settled down with a large campfire and dinner cooked in the coals. We unfortunately failed to bake the potatoes fully (a bit crunchy), but the damper, sausages, and kangaroo steak (eek!) were delicious.
Another early morning took us to sunrise over the canyon. This turned out to be my favorite part of the tour. The hike took us through the canyon, small enough you could see the other side but large enough for huge echos as we yelled across. We ate an apple in the Garden of Eden (seemed fitting) and posed for dramatic cliffside gazes with only a few rebels breaking the “stay 2 meters from the edge at all times” rule.
Fun Facts:
My bed for 2 nights was a swag - an Australian invention that’s part tent, part mattress. I brought my own sleeping bag and slipped inside for a night of sleep under the stars
Our guide had impeccable timing - most of my hesitation for group tours is the mass amount of people, but we were able to mostly stay ahead of the crowds
“Palya” is an aboriginal word that means both hi and bye