Tuesday 27th July - Yulara Tourist Village

The weather spirits proved particularly tricksy today. We awoke to clear skies which had us anticipating a great day exploring Kata Tjuta, however being rained on again as we popped into the Post Office in the tourist village should have provided fair warning as to what was to come.

It was all blue skies and sun by the time we’d driven the 20km down to Uluru, although the climb was still closed (this time due to high winds and wet rock). You get the feeling the rangers use any excuse to shut the climb as it was a calm day and there was no evidence of the rain from last night. Apparently the climb is closed about 70% of the time and there’s a commitment to shut it permanently by 2020, although most expect it to be sooner.

The 50km drive to Kata Tjuta saw clouds appear from nowhere and we were lucky to get a photo before the sun disappeared at noon.

We wore long faces as we walked the Valley of the Wind trail, with a strange psychological effect occurring whereby one’s enjoyment of a site is directly proportional to the amount of blue sky. The effect was such that, when the clouds miraculously dissipated a couple of hours later, we did the 7.5km walk again. SPOT

Kata Tjuta holds a much greater spiritual significance to the Anangu people than Uluru,

and walking through the domes you certainly get a sense of peace and tranquillity,

broken only by the song of the local bird population. On our second time around we had the walk to ourselves once we’d passed the two lookouts,

and the afternoon sun illuminating the rocks was magical.

We also paid two visits to Walpa Gorge as the sun was better later in the afternoon;

we just had time for the second trip before heading to the sunset lookout.

We actually made our own lookout on the edge of the road as the designated spot didn’t account for vegetation growth, and the view of the rocks was partially obscured.

As a ranger pulled up beside us we thought we were going to be told to move to the proper location, but no, the first words out of his mouth were “Sweet ride”. A Land Rover enthusiast with a Discovery at home, he’d spotted the Camel in the car park earlier and was excited to have tracked us down. Anne showed him around whilst I remained on the roof to capture the sunset.