Yulara - Kata Tjuta

Well today we, I, thought that we, I, was going to achieve the main goal of the trip! To watch Skinny ride off into the sunset and not come back. Well at least part of this came true!

At 10:00am Skinny was picked up by a young man on a Harley to be taken on an hour long ride around Uluru. She was given a leather jacket, gloves and a helmet to wear for this experience of a lifetime. Skinny jumped onto the back of the bike and they rode away with Skinny holding on a little bit tighter than she had been told to. Problem was they came back!




You will need to get all of the details of this from Skinny as this is a special part of her experience of the trip but it can be said that she came back with a big smile on her face after the ride.

The kids and I went for a bike ride as well, except we had to peddle and did not have the leathers, but of course wore our helmets. We road around the resort we were staying in to have a look around and buy some extra supplies that we needed.

We then sat back and prepared ourselves for yet another walk, one that we did not realise would be more exhausting than any of the walks we had undertaken before. We were going to do the “Valley of the Winds” walk at Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and at just a mere 7.5 kilometres thought it would be easy after our longer walk the day before. We were wrong!



I filled the car up with petrol, at $2.04 per litre thinking that this would be enough to get us to Alice Springs and we were on our way. Little did I realise that we would travel over 100 kilometres during the afternoon to get to and from Kata Tjuta.

The Valley of the Winds is a fantastic walk, with scenery beyond expectation, but the walk itself proved to be a little more difficult than any we had attempted before. The walk to the lookouts was up and down gully’s, over rocks and dirt paths but it was well worth it. This was nothing we had been to before and was different from Kings Canyon and Uluru.



Cathy thought that this was the most spectacular walk she had taken and was amazed at the scenery along the way even if the walk was difficult. Everyone agreed that this was far more spectacular than the walk around the Uluru, even though the site of the rock was still amazing. If you get the chance to have a walk here, do so but be prepared for a hard walk. Even if you only make it to the first lookout it is worth it, if you get to the second even better.







At the second lookout, you get the choice of turning around and walking nearly 3 kilometres back or keeping on going and walking the round trip with an extra kilometre or so attached. We kept on going and found it to be a most exhilarating but tiring walk.




After about thirty minutes of hearing the High School Musical songs being regurgitated, I mean sung, two children were bribed to keep quiet for the rest of the walk so our bodies could suffer in silence while giving our eyes and ears the chance to take in the natural surroundings. Again the photos do little justice to the real thing but they will give you and idea of what the countryside is like.





We all came back very weary from the walk and after a little souvenir shopping on the way back, started packing to get ready for our trip to Alice Springs tomorrow.