5th of March 2013

Nathalie and I had to wake up very early this morning, at about 4am. As the tour was leaving just a little after 5am to see Uluru in the Sun Rise. It was such an effort to get up that early in the morning, but once I started to think about what we were going to see the tiredness faded just enough to get ready and meet everyone within the foyer of the hotel.

When the bus came to pick us all up, it always makes a quick journey around the rest of the hotels to pick everyone up and I heard the bus driver mention that there were 46 of us on board. The trip to the viewing area to see Uluru during sunrise is a different location to seeing it within the sunset, so in all it took us about 20 minutes to get there while we pick everyone up. 

 When we arrived at the viewing area there were tea, coffee, juice and biscuits available for us to snack on, so Nathalie and I just grabbed our drinks and biscuits and headed out to the viewing area. There was a platform which we headed towards but then later changed our mind as everyone just headed to the platform. There were other paths that we took to get better shots, as well as to see in the distance Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). Even that from a distance looked amazing. When the sun slowly was coming up, and having the light reflect off Uluru it looked amazing! Everyone was taking photos, and so were we with a bit of video as well. It was truly a fantastic sight to see!

After an hour at the Uluru sunset viewing sight, we then headed off to see if the Uluru climb was going to be open. Looking at the rock, I didn't think there was anyway we could climb it. So when we arrived where everyone starts to climb the bus driver mentioned that it was closed due to the heavy winds. So we got out for a bit of a walk and a look around for about 10 minutes then headed back to the bus where the bus driver told us Aboriginal stories of Uluru.

We then headed off to the waterhole were we got to see Aboriginal paintings and the waterhole. We were even told that the park benches which we see everywhere was donated to the park by an artist from Darwin after Cyclone Tracey as a thank you to Ayers Rock for their assistance.

We then headed off to the Cultural Centre where there were a lot of Aboriginal stories and pictures. There were also paintings to be sold as well. We also noticed that there was a section of letters that people who had wrote to Aboriginal people who had come on tours and had taken a piece of the rock while they were here and decided to return them due to sudden personal mishaps. So they believed they were struck by a curse as they had stolen something sacred and decided to return it. There was even a post-it note where someone just wrote, "I took this rock and I am now returning back to your people."

We then headed back to our hotel room where Nathalie and I laid down for about just over an hour where we watched the first half of the play "Much Ado About Nothing" with David Tennant. Then headed back to the Town Centre to have some lunch. We noticed that there were a lot more people there today then there were last time.

When then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the next part of the tour where we went to see Kata Tjuta up close and journey across the Valley of the Winds. We went to the viewing area first to take some shots, and this is when we were told that the temperature was 38 degrees! So even just a small hike up to the viewing platform wore me out, though I think it may have something to do with being up at 4am.

We headed back to the bus were he took us to a path to get up and close with the a part of the gorge within the Olgas. It was a bit of a hike that took us an hour in total within the 38 degree heat, so by the time we got back to the bus I was completely exhausted. We had another hour track up closer to another part of the gorge, but I decided to stay back as I was sweating all over and really needed to cool down. There was another lady who was doing the same thing, and about 5 more other people joined us in sitting down as they were completely exhausted too. So we had a lovely chat while we all cooled down to wait for the others.

When everyone returned back to the bus we then headed to the sunset viewing area to see the Olgas within the sunset. Where we were provided with some snacks and wine and other drinks to enough the sunset. With the sun behind some of the clouds every time the sun rays hit the Olgas it was have a different effect.

After another hour of watching the sunset we headed back to the hotel where Nathalie and I had a quick shower to get rid of all the sweat, while we also got ready to have some dinner and drinks at the Pioneer Lodge. When we got outside in the darkness we could see all the stars above us that looked amazing! We could even see the Milky Way, and I pointed out a few of the constellations to Nathalie. It was truly a sight to see!

When we got to the Pioneer Lodge there was a guy playing a bunch of songs which were mostly aussie country songs which a few of the backpackers were requested. He then played a the song 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' which Nathalie got excited about as she said it reminded her of our cousin Mark. So she quickly gave him a call to say hi, and I got to say hi to him also.

We stayed there till about 11pm as I just really wanted to get some sleep by this stage. So when we caught the shuttle bus to the hotel and passed out by the time we got back.