It was a leisurely start to the day, for no reason other than our body clocks were still on Western Australian time. As a result we were not up until after 8.00am which, in the routine we have established, is quite late. No matter, as we only had one mandatory item on the agenda – a walk around the base of Uluru.
Chris took advantage of the hot showers while Wendy managed to get a final load of washing done before our return to Melbourne. It was the final load for one very good reason – it used the last of the washing powder we had packed. Also, from here on, we are just having overnight stops on our way home – no time to dry wet clothing.
With the chores done and clean clothes all round, we set our sights on circumnavigating Uluru for the second time. We seemed to queue in traffic for ages to get our 2 adult, 3-day pass (the bare minimum) to the Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park; the same park we entered from the west yesterday and drove through for free. It seemed a trainee was on duty and being thorough in his handling of the park admission welcoming spiel, etc.
We passed the turnoff to the WA border from where we had arrived less than a day ago and continued on to the near-empty Sunset Car Park to take in enormity of Uluru before venturing closer. The car park at the start of the Mala Walk was almost full when we arrived, but we managed to find a park nonetheless. This car park is a popular one of the four or five spread around the base of ‘The Rock’, as a number of walks originate from here – including the climb to the top for those wishing to ignore the requests from the traditional land owners by finding it necessary to “conquer” Uluru. We did note that the single-file procession of people on the climb seemed significantly less than we observed 5 years ago. Maybe the message is getting through.
We set off in a clockwise direction to circumnavigate Uluru. We chose clockwise for no particular reason, other than the light later in the day (as our walk concluded) might be in the right place for some photos. It was plainly obvious that it has been a wet winter, with standing water at the bottom of most of the main waterfalls and unusually damp ground along much of the walk. It must have been a really good soaking, because the surrounding desert was green with new growth; an abundance of flowers on plants and shrubs had the bees out taking advantage of the situation.
We also noted many more people walking or riding around Uluru than during our previous visit, although it was 36C back then and maybe people had retreated indoors. We completed our walk in roughly 3 hours and retired to the Cultural Centre / Café for a cool drink, a sandwich and a seat. We took the time to inspect the indigenous art on offer and decided (while knowing very little about the topic) that the piece we picked up in Warakurna in the Gibson Desert was a great buy.
We returned to our campsite via the supermarket (to top up diminishing supplies) and also took the opportunity to refuel before setting off tomorrow. On returning to camp, Wendy packed away the shopping and Chris kept himself busy by re-inflating the Tvan tyres for a day of mostly highway driving tomorrow. He also repaired the side lights on the Tvan; they are prone to getting cracked by wayward stones.
The rest of the afternoon has been spent pottering about, catching up with news on the Internet and generally taking it easy before setting off for the final leg of this adventure, into the Painted Desert and down the Oodnadatta Track.
