The national park encompassing Uluru includes another impressive mountain range called the Kata Tjutas (or the Olgas). While Uluru stands as an imposing monolith, the Kata Tjutas pop up as a series of rounded mounds. The aboriginal name means many heads. We chose to explore this area on our second day.
We found we go to bed a lot earlier when we share a hotel room with the kids. That served us well when our alarm went off at 5:30am. We made a quick departure, made it to the park entrance for its 6am opening and made it out to the Kata Tjuta sunrise viewing area by 6:45. This gave us the advantage of departing in the pitch dark and appreciating the abundance of stars that one gets in such remote and cloudless areas.
Arriving early also gave us the pleasure of watching the world slowly light up even before the sun peaked over the horizon. From this viewing area we could see Uluru silhouetted in the distance.
We could also see the bumpy Kata Jtuta range growing pinker and lighter. The light caught every blade of grass and every shadeless tree.
The park choses to concentrate the tourist impact into specific areas. They don't allow parking along the side of the road. Instead, they created specific car parks and viewing platforms. So the serenity of sunrise gets shared with a crowd like this. But they are a quiet, sleepy, respectful crowd.
Getting up for the sunrise also allowed us to eat a picnic breakfast and get out onto the trail before 9am. I read up on the various walks ahead of time and people spoke very highly of a 7km loop called the Valley of the Winds. They said there were hills and rocky footing but a lot of the challenge of the walk comes from the danger of dehydration and heat exposure in the summer months. They actually close the trails at 11am in the summer and don't allow people on them at all over certain temperatures.
We decided our girls could handle the walk if we carried all the gear, allowed lots of time, and brought a lot of food and water including Kit Kat bribes. With nothing else on our agenda for the day we settled in for a leisurely pace. The walk did not disappoint. It reminded me a lot of hikes my mother and I took in the Sonora Desert in Arizona.
I actually thought about my mother a lot on this trip. I think she would have adored the area. I spent a week in Tucson with my mother when I was sixteen. My father met us a week later to go to a dude ranch. She and I used to get up each morning and drive out to the desert to watch the sunrise and take pictures. Then we'd return to our hotel, eat breakfast in the sun, and settle into our books. I enjoyed telling the girls about their grandmother and her love of photography, nature, beauty, the color orange, and the American southwest.
It took us about half an hour to make it to the first lookout. The girls stopped to make their first fairy house.
Another hour of walking brought us to the second lookout.
Brian and I relaxed and took pictures.
The valley ahead looks quite green from above.
Clearly the plants have developed efficient ways to use the water when it comes because when you get in close you can see the dusty dryness of the ground.
On the backside of the loop we found the best fairy house of all.
Tess tired on the second half of the walk and told me five times in a row that she wished she could blink her eyes and be back at the car park but we pushed through and when she realized we were close she actually ran the last kilometer. I loved getting the chance to get out of the car and really get into the landscape.
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