After a freezing night in a dump of a campsite at Erldunda on the turnoff to 'The Rock' and the 'Olgas', we headed down the Lasseter Highway for the 240-odd kilometres to the best known Australian tourist attractions in the world.

First we passed the lesser known Mt Connor, often said to be the third famous pile of rock in the Territory. Mt Connor rises from the surrounding flatness with steep sides to a flat mesa top, visible from kilometres away. Russ says that 44 years ago when he was working in Alice Springs, he flew passengers around to see it when they expressed an interest in other sights besides Ayres Rock.

Gradually the flat ground surrenders to gently undulating red sand dunes, and quite suddenly one sees Uluru glowing in the distance, pink in the late morning sun. Even from afar, it's an impressive piece of boulder. Further to the horizon, we see the tumbled rocks of Kata Tjuta, blue in the distance.

We pay our $25 each for a three day pass into the national park and check out the Cultural Centre for information.

Despite all the photographs that everyone has ever seen of Uluru, the real thing is extraordinary. It's enormous and dwarfs everything around it. In the full sun, deep shadows are cast on its sides in the crevasses and cracks. It has a sculptural feel, a solid presence, and you can understand the significance that it had to the tribes living here.

All those years ago, when Russ flew 168 return trips to the Rock, he also managed to climb it three times in different places. Now, while heavily discouraged, climbing is allowed at one point only. I did really want to get to the top. I really did…

Quite frankly I found it very tough. It's very steep and the surface of the path up is quite polished and smooth where countless others have walked. A combination of my old boots not having the grip they once had, my knees arguing against the whole idea and the simple plain low level of fitness I currently enjoy meant I got about a quarter the way up. Ah well, I can say I climbed the Rock - I just can't say I got to the top…

We did a circuit with Russ trying to work out where the old airstrip was (it was right next to the monolith while now it's several kilometres away) and the other locations where he had climbed from.

After checking into the only place you are allowed to camp for 100 kms or so, we settled ourselves in at a designated sunset viewing area. Camera on tripod, chairs and table, glass of wine, cheese and biscuits - all good! The full moon rose behind the Rock and as the daylight departed, the colours turned from pinks to deep ember reds. It glowed with red heat as the deep blue of the sky lightened and turned pink.

Next day, we acquainted ourselves with Kata Tjuta, still in the national park but about another 40 kilometres further down the road. If anything these 'mountains' are more impressive than the Rock. The area they cover is bigger and they are taller. They may not be one big monolith but each of their gigantic boulders soaring upward is amazing. The constituent rock, oddly, is different from the Rock - not a smooth, fairly featureless sandstone but a massive piece of conglomerate with rounded volcanic rocks of basalt, diorite, serpentine embedded in a finer sandstone matrix.

We walked two of the walks, one through Walpa Gorge to a spring and waterhole, and the other through the valley of the Winds to an impressive lookout.

Both icons have lived up to their reputation - no disappointments from the visit!