Day 32: 1/2/13
We had to get up at 4:30 this morning and get on the bus very quickly with no showers or breakfast or anything. We were heading to a sunrise viewing point. The guide brought the barbecue and cooked back and eggs for us t the viewing point. Sitting, watching the sun rise up behind Uluru while eating bacon and eggs is an experience to remember!
We went to Kata Tjuta then which are a group of rocks nicknamed the Olgas. I'm not sure why they are nicknamed that. They are supposed to look a bit like Homer Simpson lying down too. They are made up of several domes of rocks. The highest is 545mhigh. In total they are over 7k long and over 4k wide. Also the majority of the rock is underground, as is Uluru and they haven't managed to measure yet how big the rock underneath is.
The words Kata Tjuta mean Many Heads in the aboriginal language of the Ananu people who are the tribe here and technically own the national park. The language is called something like Pinjonjara. It was a men's sacred place for the Ananu people and women were only allowed there once or twice in the year to collect tobacco leaves.
The rock was created by River deposits which allowed layers of sediment to build up over millions of years. The same river went through Uluru but the sediments deposited there are finer as the bigger rocks were deposited at Kings Canyon first. You can see the layers in the rock. A move in tectonic plates millions of years ago pushed the rocks up a bit so we can see the tops of them.
We walked to a Lookout called valley of the winds which was fairly windy!! After spending a while there we went to walpa gorge which was lovely. You get right in between some massive layers of rock there. We had another guide called Jason with us today who is an expert in this area and the Ananu people. The Ananu people have allowed him into their tribe and he is trusted by them to give us correct information, but not too much! He showed us where you would find a Witchety grub- the ones they have on I'm a Celebrity. There's a particular tree and if you see one side of it is stunted, it means there are witchety grubs in under it. The aborigines love to eat them as there is 2-3 times the amount of protein in them than there is in a T-bone steak! He also showed us how they make spears, using a tree that is very strong but light, they heat it so they can manipulate the wood.
He also told us about the Perentie which is the second largest lizard in te world and can be uo to 4m long. I saw one in the Koala sanctuary in Brisbane but it would be cool to see something like that in the wild. They also have a problem over here with feral cats. There's evidence that these cats are here longer than the white people. As they have very little predators they have grown way bigger than they have in any other region. The perentie is its only predator and is the top of the food chain here.
We got back in the bus after those two walks and Jason drove us. Along the way he spotted a Thorny devil, which is a type of lizard. We pulled up to get to look at it and he wanted to move it off the road. It was tiny, probably only the length or my hand. It was a brown, sandy sort of colour as they can camouflage a bit with the dry grass. It was really spiky looking and looked a bit like it was made from leaves. It was a very strange but cute creature!
Then we went to the Uluru cultural centre. There you could read about the Ananu people and their stories about creation. They have stories about two snakes and some demons and fighting between them. There is evidence of these fights and events on Uluru. There was a Video to watch also which showed some dances, body painting and stories. A long section of it was showing women with no tops on painting each others chests and singing to each other. It didn't tell us the reason they were doing it. It seemed like a fertility ritual or something, but I don't know. I'm not sure they live like this low or is it just something they do now and again. They were literally in the middle of the desert, sitting on the clay, talking and singing. They all seem to look homeless and a bit dirty- even though thats not surprising when you are sitting in dirt!There were some dances aswell which again was a lot of hopping around. Unfortunately the aborigines don't consider us wise enough or old enough to learn their culture so we can never hear all the stories. Even Jason who has spent lots of time with them doesn't know half of their belief system (pronounced chukupa, don't know how to spell it). This system contains all their creation stories and tells them how they should live their lives. There's also stuff that Jason knows and he's not allowed to tell us as we are strangers. I'm not sure why they want to keep everything so secret but I'm sure they had a good reason!
There was a gift shop there too which has lovely paintings. The aboriginal art is mostly made up of dots but they are very pretty.
We drove all the way back to the campsite for lunch and then all the way back again. We should have just brought lunch with us.
We went back directly to the rock to do a walk around it. We did the Mala walk first which has the most interesting parts. There were some caves there. One had paintings in it and would have been used as a classroom to teach children stories. Another cave was the kitchen area and had rocks where women could grind the food. There were some sacred sights around the rock too which we were not allowed to take photos of. We could look at them but there wasn't much to see. There's no way to know from looking at the rock why each one was sacred or what they did there. The guide told us one of them was where women have birth. Some sights were only for women, some for men. Now and again there would be a sign for a sacred sight in the grass and it was hard to know which part exactly was sacred. We didn't really want to take photos if we weren't supposed to as there are stories about people taking some sand or stones from Uluru and having bad luck until they returned it. Also some people climb the rock, even though the Aborigines don't want you to do it. You can see a track on the rock which is where you walk up but it looked crazy steep! Some of our group wanted to climb it but its closed in summer months as its too hot. Too many people die apparently!
The guides sent us off to do the base walk then which brought you all around the rock. It was good to see it from different angles as each part of it is completely different! I now have hundreds of photos of the rock I think! The walk was 10k around. About half way around the guides were waiting for us and thought they'd surprise us by picking us up early. But a lot of people wanted to continue walking so they could say they walked fully around Ayers rock. So we decided to keep going! It was 10k around which added to the walks in the morning probably meant we had walked 15k today!! It was fairly hot for the walk but I had plenty of water with me so I was fine! Also, it was flat the whole way around!
It was soon time for sunset then and we drove to the same viewing point they we went to for sunrise. The sun was behind us but it was cool to see how the colours of the rock changed. By the way, the red colour is just an iron that has formed on the rock from exposure. It's formed from sandstone and is quite white inside. Anyway the sunset was gorgeous and we took lots of photos. We took some group photos too and for some reason everyone was in a silly mood. There were lots of older people there drinking champagne and I doubt they were impressed when a bus load of people appeared with music blaring and all talking and laughing loudly!
We have another early start tomorrow so we had to pack all our bags tonight so we can go straight on the bus in the morning. While we were organising our bags, the guide cooked a pasta dish with Kangaroo mince. It rated exactly like beef mince in this dish anyway!!
We had another lovely view of the stars tonight! I could get used to all these sunrises, sunsets and sleeping under the stars!!