We were woken by Dylan shining a light in our eyes. I think it was 5am. I'd had a delightful sleep. I'd brought my silk sleeping bag so I was cool and covered... Lee didn't. He was hot and exposed. He woke all through the night hitting himself haha. He said bugs crawled on him all night. I didn't feel one?
We eat our breakfast around the fire and watched the sun rise over the bush land. The colours our so beautiful. It was like we were in the jungle book!
We jumped in the car and headed to our next campsite where we had 15mins to brush our teeth and get a wash before heading to Kata Tjuta aka the valley of the winds.
Kata Tjuta is within the national park that Uluru is in, Anangu land. It looks like a lumpier version of Uluru but Its made up of lots of rocks. Uluru is just one large rock.
We did the full circuit. At one point it felt like we were on the yellow brick road, then the road would turn rocky, then it would turn to bush land, next we were climbing up parts of the rock face. Flies are everywhere in the Northern Territory too. We thought Alice Springs had a good few but when we got here there were far more. They loved to sit on your back, bag, shoulder, face, eye lid, lip, up your nose... They do not comprehend personal space! Towards the end of the circuit we climbed a steep, rocky incline. It's a bit of a hike but when you get to the top the landscape is framed by these huge amazing rock formations. Everyone went silent at the top, at one point and you could just hear a soft wind carrying the bird calls through the valley. It's a serene feeling. Me and Lee sat at the edge and took a minute to just look, listen and enjoy.... (Plus Lee was hyperventilating and needed to catch his breath).
We carried on walking, after a few pics and were told about different rocks that are used as paint as we made our way to the picnic area where my job was to chop up the lettuce, whilst others prepared tomatoes, peppers to go in wraps for lunch. We had the left over chilli in our wraps too, then we jumped on the minibus.
Next stop was Uluru. We were took on the Mala walk. The guide told us indigenous stories about how the rock was formed. So far we hadn't been privy to any indigenous stories about the land as they believe certain stories should only be told to people who have inherited the right to the knowledge. The Anangu people believe this land was created by the creation ancestors and in their travels they left marks in the land and made laws to keep and live by. In comparison to the geographical information the stories sound so creative. They've been told for thousands of years and parts of the rock, the Anangu people believe, feature physical evidence that these events took place.
The first story was of a mole hiding in the rock, popping its head out waiting for the hunter to go. Holes are in a part of the rock.
A little further along we were taken to a cave with aboriginal art work on the cave wall.
The next story was of a giant dingo ghost that came to Uluru, sent by another tribe to punish the Anangu people for not inviting them to their ceremony. The dingo must have been huge because the footprint left in the rock was massive.
As Dylan was talking flies were going on his lips and were all over his back. I had to take a pic because they'd took a particular shine to him and I've never seen so many flies so content on someone's back.
We were taken to a part of Uluru that is a beautiful waterfall and waterhole when it rains for long enough. It hadn't rained for a while so it was a stained rock whilst we were there.... Use your imagination when you look at the pic! This is where the men taught the boys how to hunt.
We went to a cave that looked like a wave with raised rock inside. It's believed this is the elders who were killed by the giant dingo. We took a pic of this and accidentally caught the lady with the fly net on her head. She was on our tour and wasn't a very happy lady. Apparently she didn't read what she was booking onto because she didn't like camping and hated flies. She didn't seem that impressed by the rocks or walking either.....
After the stories we headed back to the bus. One of the other tour guides had broke in and defaced the bus! There was toilet roll everywhere and abuse for gingers... The tour guide was a ginger. My favourite was 'call me the orange power ranger' haha still makes me chuckle. When the vandal showed his face Lee said 'he looks like wreck it Ralph' ha he did! Apparently the boss had said the same thing the other day so he wasn't impressed.
We drove to Uluru view point to get some cheesy pics then drove to a little spot to watch the sunset over Uluru. It was a bit of a cloudy night so we eat our chicken noodles and drank some beer then headed for camp. There was showers so we got washed and headed for bed in our swag.
Dylan and Wreck it was telling us about tricks they've played on tourists. They told a group once that the camping area was renowned for rattle snakes so if they put a stick at each corner of the swag and tied string about 3 inch up it will stop snakes getting you. He then gave enough string for 2 or 3 people, in a group of 20. He said people started ripping their clothes to make a barrier... It was all a lie. There were no rattle snakes and string 3 inch high would not help.
Before we knew it everyone was in their swags so we went bed in prep for the early rise to see sunrise.