I will be speaking in more detail in the next section about my previous trip to Uluru (Ayres Rock), and the areas surrounding it. This was my second visit to Kata Tjuta National Park, the home of Uluru, and this time I had a very clear idea up front of exactly what Eloise and I wanted to get out of the experience. We had no intention of following an organised tour as it climbed the rock or of traipsing along after a guide as he explained every little detail of Uluru to us - we had come to experience the rock for ourselves, on our own terms, and apart from jumping on the organised bus tour that took us to Kata Tjuta, we wouldn't be getting involved with the rest of the group at all. At the entrance to the park, we had to stop at a toll station where the coach driver handed over a significant amount of money in order that we could go any further, and then somebody got on board the bus and handed out leaflets explaining about local Aboriginal beliefs and how they had changed the system quite considerably since my last visit. It seems that it is now virtually impossible to climb Uluru at all. When I was last here, climbing the rock had been something you could only do early in the morning - but now, it seemed, the rules had been tightened even more so that you also couldn't do the climb if the temperature was outside a certain range. Apparently, the local Aboriginal people had managed to arrange it so that the temperatures at which it was considered safe to climb Uluru ensured that it was virtually never possible to do so. Since the rock is considered sacred to the Aborigines and the Australian government is so keen on giving them their land and tribal rights back (and quite rightly too), I have never really been able to understand why they can't just say that nobody can do the climb anymore. Why simply restrict it, when you can ban it outright?

After being driven into the park and to the base of Uluru, we were given the same two choices as I had been given on my previous visit - climb up to the top of the rock, follow the guide along a walking trail for a couple of hundred metres to look at some Aboriginal cave paintings, or go off on our own and make our way around the base of the rock at our own pace. We said goodbye to everyone, made sure we knew exactly when the bus would be back to pick us up a couple of hours later, and set off on our own.

It struck me straight away just how different it was to be exploring the rock this way. Anybody coming to Uluru should seriously think about telling the guides where they can stick their organised tours and just wandering off on their own to explore. The path wound through the bush and across a little wooden bridge, and then passed by a small water hole at the base of the rock. Uluru towered over us, and was undercut with small caves and niches which I had somehow not seen on my previous trip.

Some of these had small signs sticking out of the ground telling us that this particular niche was a sacred site and that it would be appreciated if we didn't disturb it, but for the most part we were able to wander off the track and sit in silence on a rock, close our eyes and let the place wash over us. One of the things I love about Eloise is her spirituality, and she spent some time just pressing her hands to the inside of a small cave and listening to the rock, and it was incredible just how silent everything seemed as I sat nearby looking around and taking in the occasional Aboriginal cave painting high up on the rock walls. Dotted around the rock are signs saying that the local Pitjantjatjara people don't want anyone to take photographs of the various sacred caves and areas around Uluru, and we respected that - it's always a shame, as these are often some of the most beautiful things to see and remember, but I firmly believe that you have to respect the culture when you go to places such as Kata Tjuta.

When Eloise had first seen Uluru from the coach, which you can obviously do from some considerable distance, it was obvious how surprised she was at the size of it. As I've said before, photographs of the rock can't possibly do it justice in the same way as it's not possible to capture the splendour of the Grand Canyon on film - but nothing prepares you for actually standing at the base and looking up at this giant sandstone monolith which towers over you. From a distance, looking at Uluru from the traditional vantage point against the sunset, it doesn't sink in just how huge it is. Up close, the dead stick-like trees along the path seem like dots against the rock itself, which stands at over 1,100 feet in height. It's hard to believe, looking at the desolation of the land all around, that Uluru was once part of a mountain formation which was slowly eroded away, but survived only through an extraordinary set of geological circumstances which I don't fully understand myself. The base of the rock is a tiny oasis, covered in grass and trees and home to what seemed like a ridiculous amount of small creatures while the rest of the landscape is barren desert for miles in every direction. On the way back to where the bus was meeting us, we kept catching glimpses of something suddenly darting into the bush on one side of the path and on one occasion I stepped off the path to take a photo of an unusual bird I had seen perching in a tree, and startled a small lizard which just stood there unsure of what to do for a moment before disappearing into a hole in the ground.

By the time the bus returned for us, the sun was really making itself known and we were starting to sweat even in the shade of the shelter which had been set up by the side of the road. On board, in air conditioned luxury, we were surprised when the driver got back on with his hands cupped together and invited us to stroke his thorny devil - which is not a euphemism. It seems as though he had almost stepped on the small spiky lizard as he had headed back on board, and since I can honestly say that the thorny devil was easily the strangest lizard I've ever seen, he thought we might like to give it a stroke before he put it back in the bush. And that's also not a euphemism. The small lizard didn't seem to be particularly put out by suddenly finding itself on board an air conditioned bus, however, and I suspected that it was secretly a "serial boarder", waiting around outside buses when they came to pick up their passengers in the hope that somebody would pick it up and take it on board for a while out of the mid-day sun. Certainly, it seemed to love sitting on the seat back in front of us, looking around curiously, and didn't seem too bothered about being held and stroked either - although you do have to be careful stroking a thorny devil if you want your hand to remain in one piece. The lizard was very colourful, and clearly designed to be well disguised amongst the rocks and the trees - we handed it around carefully, and then returned it to the driver who went outside and carefully placed it back in the nearest patch of foliage.

In the evening, we took a coach out to the viewing area to see the sun go down over Uluru. The trouble with television travel shows is that the production team are able to set up a camera for days on end and then only show you the very best footage - and when I came here before I remember being disapointed. I don't know whether it was because I was expecting less this time around, or because the conditions were more conducive to giving us a perfect sunset, but watching the sun set over Uluru with Eloise was as romantic as I had hoped. As on my previous trip, the place was full of coach parties and people sitting around with picnic lunches and champagne, but somehow we managed to push our way through the crowds (and boy, were there crowds) to the barrier at the front so we had a grandstand view. I even tried to set my camera up on time lapse so that it would take one photo every two minutes as the sun went down, and this would've probably worked well if everyone hadn't have been told to go home before it had even taken a handful of shots. For some reason, Kata Tjuta National Park likes to close up at just about the time when the sunset is at its most spectacular, which means that you get to see the sun just starting to disappear and the rock beginning to cycle through its amazing colour changes, and then somebody comes along and bundles everybody back into the coaches to go home before you even feel as though its really dark at all. Call me old fashioned, but when somebody tells me that I'm going to witness a fantastic sunset, I generally expect the experience to involve getting there before the sun starts to go down and staying until I need a torch to see anything. I really don't understand, to be honest, why the crowds don't simply stay anyway - I mean, they've come to see the sunset over Uluru and its not as though the park rangers are going to call out the national guard to make everybody leave, so why people don't just say "Listen, we came for the sunset and we're not leaving until it's finished" is beyond me.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.