Day 356 – Ayers Rock & The Olgas

• Yulara
• 33°c

Even though we were up early this morning, we had never intended to see the sunrise at Uluru although judging by the amount of cars that were gone from the campground we may have been the only ones?!

As we neared Ayers Rock, the sheer size of it became apparent, it is absolutely massive and has striations running across the width of it, I would love to see the rain falling on it in the wet season.

We hadn't decided whether or not we would actually climb Ayers Rock but once we got out of the car and walked up to it, we all decided that we would. It is a controversial issue and a choice for each individual to make, they ask that you don't climb and are trying to get it closed to climbers next year. No cultural ceremonies are held here anymore and from what I can gather the main reason they don't want you to climb is that they feel responsible for any injuries that happen. 

It is a really steep climb and there is only a small chain to hold onto, we weren't sure how far we would go up but it became quickly apparent that it is no feat. We made it about halfway up and Steve & Oscar decided that was far enough for them, Ella really wanted to keep going "It's on my bucket list"! How could I not after that comment, so up us girls went. It didn't get any easier the further up we got, but we made it to the top, well the top part where the chain ends and Ella was happy with that, I wasn't going up any higher with her with nothing to hold onto.

We sat in the shade and rested whilst soaking in the view around us, boy were we high and what an amazing piece of nature we were sitting atop. Then it was time to make the journey down to sea level, we had seen people as we were going up with gloves on and I thought to myself that's a bit precious but as we were making our way down I realised they were just smart! Going down we let the chain run through our hands so if need be we could grab it and gloves sure would've been a lot kinder on the hands. 

We were all glad we had seen, touched and climbed Ayers Rock and we truly appreciated it for the magnificent piece of Australian nature that it is. The texture of the rock was really different to anything else we've seen. Ella & Oscar had commented that it didn't seem like a real rock because when you knocked on it, it sounded fake, I think it looks like a meteor that's fallen from space. They also said that parts of the rock looked like there could be a waterslide when it rained.

Needless to say we were all buggered, so Ella & Occy had a little shut eye whilst we drove the 50kms to The Olgas. Again these were some amazing natural formations but to get to them was a bit of a walk and the day was starting to heat up, so we admired them and then it was back home for a rest.

A family pulled into the campspot next to us, they're on a 3 month trip, like so many we meet, taking long service leave or a leave of absence and seeing as much as they can in that time. The kids headed off to the playground, I think Ella & Occy were happy to have some "little people" around again.

Ayers Rock at sunset was something we'd decided would be a must see, so we headed back out to The Rock and found ourselves a good spot in the Sunset Observation Area. It was really quite amazing to watch the shadow cast as the sunset and the changing colours of not only the rock, but the surrounding horizon as well.