Oz Circumnavigation: Uluru - Rocks in the Centre of Australia

A visit to the centre of Australia would be a waste of time -and seeing that we have spent quite a few weeks travelling the Stuart Highway from Port Augusta to the Top End - the 500km diversion to Uluru was a must.

This is the first sighting some 50 km from the rock

(Ayers Rock to the anglophiles)

As one gets closer the size and uniqueness of this world famous icon becomes more apparent.

For the tourists and they number in the thousands ( Ranger quotation "last year there were over 400,000 visitors"). That means a lot of cash at $50 a head to enter the national park and whats more no reduction for the Grey Nomads!!

The next series of photographs are of a section of the rock just as the sun rises, we were there with 100's of other like minded souls!
In fact we were the first to enter the park that morning having had breakfast at the entry gate at 6am, that in itself was quite a feat, sine we had to be up and leaving the night stop at 5.30am!!
The series of photographs were taken over a 30 minute period and the speciality is the colour change in the rock over that period.

After the ritual of watching the sun rise over the rock the next tourist must is to climb the rock, this shows the intrepid visitors winding their way up the first third, guess what we did not make the climb, but marvelled at the tenacity of those that did.

In retrospect we did not fully understand the wonders of "the Rock", interesting but not what you would say as stimulating,maybe we have seen too much.

After Uluru we went to the Olga,s some 50 Km from Uluru, these we felt had more shape and form, but then beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Just to confirm where our interests really lie, for us it was dinning in the desert under the stars that really made the visit to Uluru magic.
The following photographs are our scene.

This are fellow traveller with whom we spent the evening.