Uluru - 2

Date of Adventure 9-13 December 2024

The drive to Uluru from the Stuart Highway is pretty much like many of the highways in the red center. There are occasional views of buttes and interesting scenery. And it’s definitely red. A hundred km or so before Uluru there’s a big mesa, Mount Connor.

I did a short hike one day to a couple of the caves in the base of Uluru. It’s worth saying that the hikes are on very well established and maintained trails. I think that these are wheelchair accessible if you have slightly wide tires on the wheelchair. They have signs in various places telling you not to photograph rocks and sites that are particularly sensitive to the indigenous people. They still live locally and visit and use the area for ceremonial purposes and food gathering.

The hiking trails are real superhighways. But during the height of the season I’ll bet they are full of people of all different abilities.

The first, somewhat short, hike I did was out to a couple of the caves and a waterhole. It had rained the week before so some of the waterholes around Uluru were still full of water. It was an overcast day so the colors aren’t completely washed out.

My last day at Uluru, well the day before I left, I decided to hike the base trail. That is the trail that completely circumnavigates the rock. I hiked from about 10:30 to about 12:30, so during a fairly hot part of the day. But with proper clothes and just walking at a good pace, it wasn’t too bad. Took me just about 2 hours to walk the 10 km around Uluru. These pictures show some of the views of the rocks as I hiked. Notice that the rocks are layered but that the layers are vertical instead of horizontal as you would see in most places. It’s the result of lots of geological upheavals.

That evening I drove back out to the sunset view point. The park has allocated parking and viewing space along the road for people to take photos. When I arrived, at about, 6:45 PM, there were only 5 or 6 cars but by sunset there might have been 20 or more. Still it wasn’t really crowded. I took a lot of pictures, trying to get some when the colors and shadows were right. I thought that I’d see more color change on the rock itself but it was mostly a change of the shadows. So here’s a couple of pictures of the change over something like a 45 minute time.

And looking back towards the sun as it was going down, a fairly typical Australian Outback Sunset.

As much as I feel like the businesses at Yulara are kind of a ripoff, I’m still happy that I spent the time there. Beautiful scenery (red center), interesting information about the original owners of the land, and a somewhat special feeling for this unusual place.