Uluru Day Three - Sunrise

On our third day at Uluru we got up early once again and drove out to see the sunrise. This time we chose a closer vantage point and we came prepared with more snacks, layers and blankets. Brian backed our rental car up to the view and put the seats down so the girls could make a cozy nest. They loved it! They each brought a notebook for drawing.

Brian and I enjoyed getting a new vantage point. Uluru looks different from each side. 

The morning light on Uluru really shows off the sedimentary layers in the sandstone.

We also got good views back over toward Kata Tjuta.

At 8am we joined a guided walk along the base of the rock.

Our guide showed us a cave with rock art. He explained how the traditional land owners of the Anangu tribe came to this space to make paintings and retell the traditional stories. I enjoyed hearing more about the significance of Uluru for Aboriginal people. 

While Brian and I enjoyed hearing about native land use, fauna and flora the girls made quick friends with a pair of british sisters and happily walked hand in hand. 

Our guide told us a little about the geology of the area. Uluru formed from sedimentary layers that then got turned on end through the movement of plate tectonics. The red color comes from the oxidation of the iron in the stone. In plain terms the rock is rusting. 

The Kata Tjutas (pictured below) formed as a conglomerate. They also formed through sedimentation but with rocks, mud and other materials in the mix. 

Sunrise and sunset enhance these reds because the sun comes in at an angle and the atmosphere filters more of the blue from the light.

Either way, it makes for a lot of red dust on shoes, clothes and everything else!

I enjoyed seeing Uluru up close and appreciating all the hidden nooks and crannies.

Our guide showed us a pool of water that acts as a year round water source - quite a scarcity in the Outback.

For fifty years or so tourists were encouraged to climb Uluru. They even put in a rope line for people to hold onto. These days the rangers discourage climbing out of respect for the holy nature of the site for Aboriginal people. 

Brian explored part way up the mountain and confirmed that the view looking out pales in comparison to the view of Uluru. 

I'm thrilled we made this trip. It really helped round out our Australian experience. While I know we have only scratched the surface of this dear country we have already seen more of it than many Australians. We even finally got a chance to get a picture with a famous kangaroo crossing sign.

I'll leave you with this parting shot of Uluru from above.

Uluru Day Two - Kata Tjutas

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 girls got busy on a second fairy house. This one had a garden, a bedroom, and a walk in closet - pretty much anything a fairy could want.

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. 

Uluru Day One - Sunset

So we flew three hours to the middle of the country to see a big rock. It's more than just that but it's also just that. Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) stands 1,142 feet high with an outer circumference of 5.8 miles. We went in to the trip eager to get a taste of the Australian Outback and to give the girls some sense of the dusty red plains that they'd only heard about through song. Uluru holds special spiritual significance for the Aboriginal populations and I looked forward to learning about that as well. 

Australia is the second driest content after Antarctica. Despite the lushness of Sydney and much of the eastern coast most of the country consists of desert and semi-arid grasslands. Uluru stands in the center of the country near the borders of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. Many people fly in to Alice Springs and then take the five hour drive to the park. Alice Springs boasts a population of 25,000 making it the third most populous town in the Northern Territory. Yup, this area is remote. We had the good fortune to fly directly into Yulara - only a fifteen minute drive from the park. Yulara consists of a tiny airport, several lodging options, a general store, a gas station, a few restaurants and a year round population of about 900. 

We actually started our day by waking at sunrise in Sydney. 

Flying in you get a first glimpse of Uluru from the plane. The girls shrieked when they saw it. "Look, the Big Rock!" We have been reading a book about a family taking a road trip around Australia so they knew that a little about Uluru and how people go to watch the colors change at different times of day. The rock really stands out on the landscape. It's amazing up close but it's almost more amazing from afar because you see it in the context of just miles of flatness.

I worried that with all the amazing photos of Uluru I would find myself frustrated by my own attempts to capture it. Instead, we drove up to the sunset viewing area and I snapped this shot right away on my cell phone. The conditions were perfect. It was warm but not hot. Cloudless and dry. The flies annoyed us but then given that we missed out on the legendary summer heat it felt appropriate to endure some sort of hardship.

So after taking a good first shot we had forty minutes to look around, appreciate the flowers and just take in the landscape. From ground level things look surprisingly green. There are even trees but somehow none of them provide shade. From above you get a better sense of the dryness and the redness. And up close you can see that the grass is really a spiky, barbed plant called spinifex. Still, I'm quite fond of this fragrant bush.

 We took some sunset portraits.

We watched older girls sketch and paint. The crowd was quiet and respectful. Some people resent crowds at national parks but I like to look around and see that all these people came all this way just to watch the sun set and admire nature. It gives me faith.

Emily took a turn with the big camera and even took some good shots.

This picture cracks me up because clearly it's all about us, her parents, and Uluru is tucked in the corner as an after thought.

And then the sun set. And the colors just got better. The foreground darkened and the reds really came out. It was stunning. 

And Brian got this lovely panorama. Already worth the whole trip.

Month Seven Report

I check in with the girls from time to time to ask them how they feel about going home at the end of August. Tess put it best when she said, "I'm happy and sad but more happy." I feel like I'm living a double life some times. I know we're going home soon. I'm excited to see friends and family and get this guy back.

At the same time, I'm not done with Sydney. I love this city, this country, and the opportunities we have had living in this part of the world. July was a wonderful month for us. We loved our trip to Bali. We returned home to several weeks of beautiful sunny weather. Winter may be cooler here but the trees are still green and the flowers are in bloom. 

While the beach may be cold for swimming it's great for long walks.

Brian and I even made to see "Of Monsters and Men" in concert.

We are savoring the time we have left. We chose not to make a "bucket list" for fear of finding ourselves disappointed by what we did not end up doing. We have made our choices. We went to Bali instead of Thailand. We chose Uluru over wine country. We still have some big plans in store for August. It is one eight of our time here after all. Still we want to make sure we spend time appreciating stunning Sydney, beautiful Balmain, our wonderful everyday life, and our dear dear friends.