Uluru
I was excited by the prospect of returning to Ayers Rock and The Olgas, now Uluru and Kata Tjuta, after 41 years. It was even more so for Kay and Yvonne who had not been there before.
We flew directly from Sydney to Uluru on a Qantas 767 jet, quite a change from 1970 when I did it on a single engine plane for the 300 km journey from Alice Springs, as a faster alternative then to a long coach ride over unsealed road.
Click here for more photos of Uluru and Kata Tjuta
As we wanted to travel on to King’s Canyon and Alice Springs as well, we picked up a 4WD at the Uluru airport. The vehicle provided us with the means of commuting between Yulara (where we stayed) and Uluru and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) several times over the three-day stay, for walks, sunset photography, and the cultural centre.
The image of Uluru is probably as iconic as the Coca Cola logo, but no matter how familiar one is with it, the first encounter with the real thing still inspires the visitor with awe, which it did for us on our first view as we drove towards it.
We respected the wishes of the traditional owners and did not attempt to climb the rock, though the steep initial ten or twenty metres that had no guiding rails could possibly have deterred us anyway.
We did take the 10km round trip walk that was quite easy as the track was flat and well finished with elevated walkways in parts, a hike that took us about 3 ½ hours including some side diversions to view waterholes and small caves featuring old aboriginal wall paintings. The weather was good with warm winter sunshine at most parts, but parts sheltered by the rock or vegetation retained the cold, as night temperatures drop to near freezing at this time of the year.
Apart from the beauty of the Rock, the colours were stunning with the red soil, the colours of the clear blue skies and the surrounding desert vegetation after a good wet season of recent months. There was also a surprising abundance of birdlife.
Click here for more photos on wildlife in the Red Centre.
Accommodation at Yulara
All tourist facilities are now contained within a well established resort, the Ayers Rock Resort, at Yulara, some ten minutes drive away from the Rock. It provides a wide range of accommodation types and includes a small shopping centre for those who prefer self catering, quite unlike my previous visit when an air strip and a single rundown motel sat in incongruous close proximity to the monolith.
Without any food preparation facilities (since we opted for motel type accommodation at the Desert Garden Hotel), we were largely at the mercy of the sole café in the day and a single restaurant at night at the shopping centre, apart from the rather posh restaurants in the hotels that would have set up back even further. We did discover later a more basic style of dining at another location in the resort, but nowhere could one escape the high cost of tourism at such a remote location.
Click here for more photos on the Yulara Ayers Rock Resort.
Kata Tjuta
Situated some 40km way and also part of the same National Park, Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas, is a much larger structure rising out of the flat land. In many ways, Kata Tjuta is even more striking in appearance especially from the viewing site a few kilometres away.
It was certainly more challenging for us in our walks when we had to clamber over uneven grounds strewn with rocks weathered from its many complex domes. Our walk to the first lookout of the Valley of Winds tired us out and we decided not to push on to the next one, which we regretted in hindsight. The walk to the Walpa Gorge was somewhat easier.
Click here for more photos of Uluru and Kata Tjuta
King’s Canyon
If Uluru was remote, King’s Canyon was even more so, being another 200 odd km away to the north via good sealed road. As we had only two nights at the King’s Canyon resort, we spent the afternoon of arrival on the relatively easier walk along the King’s Canyon Gorge, leaving the more challenging Canyon rim walk to the full day we had.
Click here for more photos on King's Canyon. We were warned about the climb to the rim of King’s Canyon and indeed from the first look the stony stairs cut out of fractured rocky surface looked difficult if not dangerous. However, once we started on the climb the following morning, we managed it quite well as the stairs were prepared well, with no loose stones that could give way on our steps. Indeed in many parts throughout the walk, the paths were built out of the natural rocks, cleverly cemented together for safety but without distracting from the natural surroundings. The track brought us through fractured rocky structures, close to the cliff edges with panoramic views of the valleys below, and in parts deep into the valley such as The Garden of Eden. It took us a fairly exhausting 3 ½ hours, ending with a steep descent back to the car park.
Like Yulara, there was limited but good accommodation facilities at King’s Canyon.
Hermansburg on the road to Alice Springs
The reason we chose a 4WD vehicle was our intention to visit Hermansburg via the Mereenie Loop a stretch of 100 odd kilometres of unsealed road. (To travel from King’s Canyon to Alice Springs on good sealed road would be a much longer in distance, more than 400km).
The bumpy ride to Hermansburg convinced more than ever that the roads the 4WDs are designed for do not exist in cities like Sydney, quite apart from the difficult of manoeuvring into car parking lots and poor rear vision. And I certainly would not want my car to run on that kind of road, even if I owned a 4WD; there must surely be significant vehicular deterioration after that stretch alone.
It was interesting to visit the restored buildings of the old Lutheran Mission at Hermansburg, which was also the birth place of the renowned Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira. The sad life of Namatjira reflect the plight of the indigenous peoples, a situation that one cannot but be confronted with when visiting the Northern Territory or even any remote towns in Australia.
We had wanted to visit Palm Valley, a small valley of lush vegetation created by the microclimate of its sheltered location. However, we became discouraged when we found that the road to the valley was of extreme ruggedness requiring not just a 4WD vehicle, but some skills and experience in using it , none of which we possess. Instead, we headed straight into Alice Springs, admiring the majestic McDonnell ranges as we drove along.
Click here for more photos on Hermansburg and the road leading to the town.
Alice Springs
For me the name conjured the romantic remoteness of a beautiful town as well described by Neville Shute. Forty one years ago, it was certainly so, with low rise shops that grew busy in the evenings as stockmen, many of whom were aboriginals, called in to meet and chat over drinks. Today, Alice has many modern buildings, banks, a mall and shopping centres not unlike other Australian cities. The Todd River was still dry, but number of indigenous people seemed fewer, and none were found grouping under the trees on the dry bed of the river.
There were many historic and iconic places to visit. Our first stop at the old Telegraph Station brought a major surprise for me, for it coincided with the annual meeting of the old telegraph operators who reactivated the communication by Morse Code telegraph link between Alice Springs and Adelaide. It bought back memories of my signalling experience during Scouting days, and also incurred my high admiration for the two long retired technicians, likely octogenarians, who could still send and receive the Codes at lightning speeds. They were even deciphering short messages without writing them down!
There was also a chance encounter at the historic site with an aboriginal man who was one of the “stolen generations” (“half caste” children taken from or given away by their mother) and kept in one of the buildings near the Telegraph Office. He eagerly explained, without anger or regret, the facts of his past, and pointed out to us himself as a young child of 4 or 5, in a group photo taken at the site in 1935. It highlighted to us, not just the harsh reality of life for a young child, but also the difficulty of coming to terms in consensus manner for other Australians today with this controversial past.
The rest of the two full days we had in Alice Springs we were able to fill with visits to places that demonstrated positive events and achievements. The Desert Park had an excellent collection of flora and fauna for the range of desert habitats. The bird show was interesting, with galahs, kites, a falcon and even barn owl appearing on cue, seemingly flying in from the wild. Kay and I visited the centre for the Flying Doctors Service while Yvonne went to the Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame. At the School of the Air, it was most encouraging to see the use of the Internet for the online education of children in remote locations. It was an appropriate conclusion for our Central Australian visit.
