Uluru

DAY 8 – YULARA

What a fantastic day!!  We were planning on an early morning walk around the rock but just as the Parsons got into the car, a flat tyre was found!!  So unlucky to get a nail in tyre out here.  So the wonderful Alpha males crawled around in the red dirt while Pauline read (annoyingly!) from the instruction manual, explaining to them how to loosen wheel nuts!!  We were told to go and nurture the children and stick to women’s work.  Tyre changed, we were on the road!

The Parsons intended to climb the rock where we were just doing the base walk.  We started with the ranger guided Mala Walk which was really interesting – learning about how proficient the Aborigines are in understanding and using the trees and plants around them.  He was calling the trees a supermarket, hardware store and chemist all rolled into one.  He explained that Uluru was just a family name and did not really mean anything.  It was just the family name of the Anangu people who lived there.

While the Parsons went back for “the climb”, we proceeded around the base of the rock – 10.6kms, about 3.5 hours of solid walking. 

The rock itself is just stunning.  There are really no words to describe its beauty, serenity and size.  In some places the rock is just a sheer drop to the ground – 90 storeys high in some places!  The waterholes were just stunning – so peaceful and secluded.  There really aren’t words to describe how beautiful this place is.  It is easy to see how people call Uluru “the heart of Australia”.  As we walked around the rock, you felt like you were the only people in the world.

The walk around the base of the rock was so interesting on a number of levels.  We saw the site of the original camping ground and hotels which disappeared in the 1980s when the new Yulara Resort was built.  The north, south, east and west sides of the rock are so different.  The eastern face of the rock has a number of erosion marks which the kids loved making up stories about, similar to what you do with clouds!  On that side, the vegetation was gorgeous – just like a native garden with so many different flowers and shrubs.  The southern face of the rock has completely different vegetation because it has a lot more shade – taller, shadier gum trees, much less flowering shrubs, but much grassier and cooler.  The waterhole around that side was beautiful.  It was good to explain to the kids (and me!) that the Aborigines would not have swum in these waterholes because they would have been important sources of drinking water and so it was very important to keep them clean. 

We came home for some shopping and collecting of firewood before heading back to the rock for sunset.  A little disappointing as it was very overcast and so the changing of the rock colour was not particularly obvious.   But we more than made up for it with our cheeses and Moet Chandon champagne for the momentous occasion!

Home for a good Aussie BBQ and toasting marshmallows around the campfire!  The kids just had a ball, chasing each other around and then sitting around the big fire.  Such a great night.