Uluru - The Sunrise

Waking at 4:30 was a bit tricky after the indulgence of the night before, but we managed it. It was still pitch black, and we got an amazing view of the Milky Way in all its glory and were lucky enough to spot a couple of shooting stars.

As it turned out, we needn't have got up so early as our bus was late. We were a bit panicky as we arrived dead on time, but waited at the wrong bus stop, and seeing lots of buses come and go, we thought we'd missed it. However, due to "technical problems" the bus arrived about 30mins late. We were a bit upset about this, as the sky was getting light and we were missing some of the colour change on the rock. Our guide didn't seem to appreciate that this was a once in a life time experience for all of us!!

We arrived about 15mins before the main event and it was pretty awesome to see this amazing natural wonder up so close, and see it go through a series of colour changes. Of course, it doesnt really change colour, just reflects the light in different ways depending on the height of the sun, and the amount of light...

After the sunrise, we got the opportunity to climb the rock. The Aboriginals ask you not to, as it's sacred and against their religion, but quite a few people advised us to do it, and as it was open, we thought we would.

The rock is only open for maybe a third of the year as it gets quite dangerous when the winds pick up, and when the temperature soars to over 36 degrees (quite often). In fact, when we got back down, the climb was shut for high winds, and man, was it windy up there...

The climb itself is pretty difficult. You have to follow a chain up the side of the rock and pull yourself up. Its steep, and as we're mega unfit, we needed to stop every couple of mins or so to catch our breath and give our calf's time to recover. There was the odd 60 year old man who cruised passed us without breaking sweat ;) You wonder how the aboriginals climb without the chains...

When you reach the top of the chains, you then go free style and have to make your own way. You go around a corner, and think you're at the top, and almost get blown over by the wind. Similar to the night before, if you stop and listen to the nothing, it is pretty awe inspiring, especially with the views. You can understand how this place gets its spiritual links.

Alas, this is about half way to the summit, and you have to climb over mounds and crevasses, following the little white lines on the floor. The rock at this point is shaped almost like waves, the way it rises and drops, and you wonder how nature managed to create such a thing.

Reaching the summit is amazing - the wind howls in your ears, and you can see for miles, and there is nothing apart from bush/scrub land and Kata Tjula. Up here you realise how special this place is.

It turned out that we were lucky with the rain, as this created little puddles on the top of the rock, and these puddles had life in!!! These things were shield shrimps, and they only live for a couple of days, i.e. until the puddles dry up. In this time they lay eggs, so that the next time it rains, the species can be reborn.

Coming back down was also tough, and the wind had picked up, and probably a bit dangerous, which is why they shut it. At the chain, we had to climb down backwards, as this was far easier, and it was a bit like abseiling - it still hurt the calf's ;)

When we got down we realised how high the rock really is, and also how lucky we were to climb when we did. Besides the wind, the climb area was now in full sunlight and very hot, whilst we were lucky to climb in the shade.

We decided that the climb wasn't enough exercise, and walked around part of the base. We latched onto a couple of tour groups, to earwig some info about the rock and aboriginals;) We saw some of the Abo. rock art, a serene waterfall, and several chambers where ceremonies are still held. We also saw some weird owl type things.

We didn't feel like doing the circuit around the whole rock, and this takes about 4 hours, so we headed over to the info centre to learn a bit about the rock, and its significance to the aboriginals. They have various stories about snakes carving the land during Dreamtime, which create these spiritual sites. There are also stories of tribes coming together at the rock.