Tuesday 5th December – The field of light and Uluru base walk

At 340am, it was possibly the earliest alarm call ever?!  But we couldn’t risk being late for our 420am pick up by our AAT Kings bus. After completing all of the pick-ups there were only 20 of us on the bus.  It was nice to see that they didn’t try to overbook the tour by cramming in as many people as possible, so there was plenty of space for us to view the fields and sunrise without it feeling crowded at all.

The first part of the experience was to wander through the fields of light.  This is a temporary artwork consisting of over 50,000 lightbulbs powered by solar energy and interconnected by fibre optic tubing.  The bulbs change colours in patches with the aim being to re-live the colourful flower blooms that are now sadly rare around Uluru.  It took a while to adjust the settings on my camera to get the lighting levels right without blurring the lights, but eventually I managed to achieve some photos that I’m quite proud of.

Image of the Field of Lights showing multi-colours in the distance whilst also giving away the network of cables on the ground that enables the whole spectacle to occur

We’d been told to be back at the viewing platform for 0520 hours in time to watch sunrise with hot drinks and biscuits provided.  We were treated to one of the best sunsets I think I have ever seen.  Enhanced by some stunning cloud formations that created some incredible colours in the sky.  It just kept getting better and better.  Uluru was a side-show compared to the sky! 

A stunning sunrise thanks to these clouds

Even before any rays hit Uluru we turned around to see the pink of the rising sun slowly creep over Kata Tjuta and light up the domes (below). Incredible.  Again, I have run out of superlatives!

Kata Tjuta in the morning sunlight

Back on the bus we were dropped back off at the campground by 620am.  Time to jump back into the camper and return to the base of Uluru!  It was the same as yesterday, in fact the winds felt even stronger today so there was no chance for us to climb the rock.  I felt partly relieved.  The Aboriginal people strongly urge visitors not to climb their sacred place.  It is a tourism goal to want to rise to the challenge of climbing such a steep landmark and I understand that, but still, part of me was glad I didn’t have to face the moral dilemma of whether I would go against their wishes to climb it.  Even more pertinent now, as there has been a landslide vote to close the climb permanently as of spring 2019, so this was our last chance to do it and generations after us will not have the opportunity at all.

What to do if we couldn’t climb Uluru? The next best thing seemed to be to do the base walk around the entire circumference of the rock.  Covering 10.4 km and estimated to take three and a half hours, we set off just before 730am.

I don’t want to go over the top waxing lyrical about Uluru, but it is certainly more than just a rock in the middle of a desert.  It has so many contours and shapes that make it unique and the surrounding area is thriving with assorted vegetation and wildlife that creates individual areas of differing habitat as you walk around.  

It is hard to imagine how some of the formations have come into existence

Having expected it to take all morning we didn’t hang around and went at quite a pace.  So, it ended up only taking us just over two hours to circumnavigate!  Back from our main activity of the day we had time to visit the cultural centre to learn more about the history and conflict over ownership of the landmark and surrounding countryside.  We bought the obligatory shot glass to add to our collection and returned to the camp site.  It was still barely 11am!

We were in a quandary about whether to and/or when to visit Kings Canyon.  I didn’t realise the huge distance between the canyon and Uluru.  It would take three and a half hours to drive one way between them and that entails an entire tank of diesel for the trip at a cost of over $120!  The other issue is time.  To enable us to arrive in Adelaide on schedule on Friday means we need to cover some ground tomorrow afternoon.  We juggled with a couple of possibilities today.  Being us, we refuse to miss out!  So, would we head there this afternoon to do the 6km rim walk? We were both tired after this morning’s exertions really.  Should we get up at 5am tomorrow to do the drive and the walk tomorrow?  This would still will take most of the day to do.  The decision we’ve come to is to drive to a free, powerless site tonight which will take off 1.5 hours of the drive meaning if we still get up at 6am we can get there, do the walk and be back on the road after lunch.  This afternoon we will utilise our third day at the campground using their pool, showers and electricity before heading off early enough to arrive at our camp spot before dark.  Thankfully, it is cool enough at night now for air conditioning not to be necessary.

Whilst I was at the pool, Simon was very busy making some major bookings for us – a car relocation between Adelaide and Melbourne for the Great Ocean Road, a camper between Melbourne and Sydney in time for Christmas AND a booking for Adelaide in an AirBnB. Wow! Simon’s really embracing the ‘winging it’ lifestyle.  Having used the internet to the max, showered and filled up with water, we departed Ayers Rock resort about 530pm.

We drove to Curtin Springs where we filled up with diesel and found our free camping spot for the night, one hour nearer to Kings Canyon for the morning.