The Big Red Rock

On the Saturday we got up unnaturally early and drove over to Uluru to walk around the base of the rock and catch the sunrise. It was incredibly and surprisingly cold! And it was quite spooky - it was really quiet, except the wind through the bush sounded like fizzing surf, and the rock looming over you was quite scary. The walk was 9.4km (the base is 10km in diameter) which took us 2.5 hours, but it was well worth it to see the colour of the rock change as the sun rose. It became an amazing flaming orange colour at sunrise, compared to the bluey-purple of first light. All the lads on our bus hung back cos they wanted to climb it (to show they were macho!). I didn't want to, cos not only did it look incredibly taxing, it's also really disrespectful to the Aborigines of the region. On our walk we passed waterholes and cave paintings, and loads of sacred sites that, for some reason, you're not allowed to photograph.

Eventually we got back to the bus, and after some fruit cake and a short snooze we arrived at Kata Tjuta. These rocks are basically the same sort of rock as Uluru, but there's a few of them, whereas Uluru is a monolith. I think it's the largest one in the world too, hence it's fame. Anyway, we opted for the short walk (which was still 6km!), through the Valley of the Winds (which, in fairness, was quite windy) and up to Karingana Lookout. The view was amazing from up there as you got to see down into a valley, it made a great photo!

Once we got back to camp, no one said a word during lunch as we were all so exhausted! Celia was wondering what she'd done wrong! We had a bit of a swim in the pool to cool off, and it was lovely and freezing! Then in the afternoon we drove back to Uluru to have a look at the Cultural Centre, which was an outlet for the Aborigines to explain the significance of Uluru and Kata Tjuta in their culture, which was quite interesting. The weirdest thing was a file full of letters from visitors to Uluru, who had taken rocks from the sites and then heard a rumour that you are cursed if you steal rocks from the National Park, and subsequently linked their bad luck since to the theft. They were all apologies and requests to put the rocks back, and you could tell they were all really sincere and these people were really scared. The rumour isn't true, however you're still not allowed to take rocks from the National Park. It was really interesting reading.

We did a cultural walk around a part of Uluru where Celia showed us various points of interest, including cave paintings, an overhang that looked like a wave, a rock with holes in it, all of which had Aboriginal stories to go with them. It was very interesting, but by this point in the day I was so tired that I wasn't really that bothered! Then we drove over to a spot on the road where you can watch the sunset, and we'd been beaten to it by masses of coach tours bearing German tourists! One of them took some group photos of us which was nice. It was funny too as they all had their champagne in glasses and tables with tablecloths on them, and we just had champagne in plastic cups! The sunset was good, it was a bit cloudy but something I'll definitely remember for the rest of my life.

Back at the camp we had chicken burgers for tea, drank wine, played cards, and probably went to bed a bit later than what's advisable!

PS. Phrase of the Day: "But you wouldn't really get much off a cat, would you?" - spoken by Claire during a conversation about what animals you would and wouldn't eat.