Uluru or Ayers Rock, whichever you call it, is a long way from anywhere. If you stuck a pin in the centre of Australia you'd pretty much be on the money with where Uluru is, so this was our next stop on our tour of Oz.

We left Alice Springs nice and early but it still took us about 5 hours, again roasting hot, to get to Uluru. About 160km from it you suddenly notice a huge red rock in the distance, and if it hadn't been for the Lonely Planet Australia book you would think it was Uluru, but its not. Its actually Mt Conner which looks very similar and is one of the most photographed red herrings in Oz. About an hour later on though and across the flat boring countryside suddenly comes into view a giant red shadow........ULURU!

Being honest, the first time you see it, Mt Conner has taken some of the wow factor away from it, but once you get close to it you realise how bloody big it is and you can't help but be impressed! In total Uluru is 380m high and 9.4km round so thats a big bit of rock, especially when you consider that scientists reckon its like an iceberg so it still has over 80% beneath the surface!

When we first arrived at Uluru we went to the campsite at Yulara which is the only camping/resort area near Uluru. After we got our site sorted for the next 3 nights we jumped back in Bolt and headed into the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. First shock wasn't Uluru but was the $25 per person admission charge! GITS! Anyway, $50 lighter we drove into the park and headed for the sunset parking area. As we were about an hour before sunset we easily found a parking spot and got our camera setup ready for the sunset at 1830. From this distance, about 2km you really appreciate how big Uluru is and its certainly an impressive sight. Once the sun did start to set the rock starts to change colour with the light so you get lots of different shades of red/orange and we think its actually the most impressive view of Uluru you can get. Memorable.

After the sunset we headed back to the camp ground, got some tucker and hit the sack as we had an early start in the morning for the sunrise.

Sunrise at Uluru was at 7am, but we were up at 5am as it takes a while for all the tourists to get into the park and round the other side of Uluru for the sunrise, which we made with about 5 mins to spare! Another impressive sight watching the sunrise and seeing the different colours of Uluru, albeit not as impressive as the sunset. Bit of a downer here as a lot of people were walking around being rude to people who got in there photos as everyone wanted "the shot" but thats life eh? Oh yeah, saw a dingo in the parking lot too! Thankfully more scared of us than the Fraser Island ones :)

After the sunset, as it was nice and cool, we headed round to the Uluru Base Walk which we were going to do. The base walk, as you probably guess, is a walk around the base (duh) of Uluru. Its 9.4km round and lets you see the rock up close and get to appreciate its history, and how flipping big it is! There are several sites on the way round where you can see Aboriginal rock paintings dating back 22,000 years so that was cool! The walk in total took us 3hrs so not bad, just very very hot!

One more thing. Uluru is one of the most sacred Aboriginal sites and because of this the Anunga (the original tribe there) ask visitors not to climb Uluru. There are signs everywhere asking you not to climb and respect the wishes of the tribe, yet the Australian government still put a climbing trail on Uluru for people to use!!! The Oz government, and Ozzies as a whole seem to regard Uluru as "their" icon so they can do with it what they want. They seem to forget that the first white man only saw Uluru in the 1930s, and the first tourist only arrived in the 1970s, yet the Anunga have been there for 22,000 years, so who's icon is it!?!?! Sorry, rant over. We decided to respect the wishes on the Anunga (and not risk the bad luck) by doing the base walk instead. Wish other people did the same as there was almost a traffic jam of people trying to do the climb.

Anyway, no more rants now, we promise

Our 3rd and last day at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, we visited Kata Tjuta, or as its otherwise known, The Olgas. This is another rock formation 50km from Uluru but this is even more sacred to the Aboriginal tribes so no one knows the meaning of the site. The Olgas are a series of sheer rock faces stretching 1km long and up to 560m high, so taller than Uluru. We were both a bit worn out from the hike yesterday (the heat is a killer here) so we only did short walk here, 1.5km loop instead of the full 7.2km as its unshaded and we probably have baked ourselves doing it. The Olgas were quite impressive to see actually and definitely worth the drive out. Oh yeah, on the way back to the campsite we saw 3 wild camels roaming near the road. How random is that!

So thats our trip to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Good experience and certainly glad we came. Its a shame is soooooo far from anything else as it does put a downer on it, especially when you have to backtrack for 3 hours over the same road, just to get back to the main road before you can head south again. But thats its, we are heading south again towards South Australia and our next stop over in Coober Pedy.