A dream coming true

To visit or even climb Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, has been a childhood dream of mine since I first saw a picture of this enchanting landmark rock in my nature book. It is one of Australia's best known natural features and has become the symbol of the continent. The rock is a so-called inselberg (similar to a monolith). It measures 3,6 km length and rises 348 m high from the surrounding red desert. By a mountain system underneath the earth's surface Uluru is connected to the neighbouring mountain Kata-Tjuta. 

In 1985 the land around Ayers Rock - the name from British colonial times - was officially returned to the traditional owners, the Anangu. In their language Uluru means "shade giving place". Because of its spiritual relevance to the Dreamtime narratives it is considered a holy mountain by them.

As an individual traveller it is nearly impossible to visit the mountain or you end up paying more than the tour packages. So I joined once again a tour of several days, although they are relatively expensive. I paid almost 400 AU$ for 2 nights/3 days even though I got a 10% discount from my ex-employer Peter. I decided to join Mulgas Adventures, because of the good things I heard about them. With other tour groups you sometimes pay even more or have to expect bad organization.

Camels in Australia?

At 6am the minibus picked me up from my hostel in Alice Springs. I took only a small backpack and left the big luggage in the hostel. The driver was a casual man in his thirties who had done the tour a few times before. Our core group consisted of 3 Taiwanese, 2 French, 1 Australian all around my age. Later we were joined by other people, who we picked up at the airport. Before we left the civilization, our guide gave us a last chance to refill our alcohol supplies. But the already high alcohol prices are doubled here, so that the opened bottle I had with me ought to be enough for the trip.

Our first stop was a camel farm. Until then I didn't even know that this was included in the tour, let alone that there were camels in Australia. They were brought in by the British in the 19th century and have now become very common in Australia. With a Frenchman I saddled the camel. The animals were led in a line by the guide in tow. It wobbled a little and was an entertaining pleasure but I would not have paid any extra for it.

Climbing Uluru - yes or no?

We were already on the road for more than 6 hours since we left Alice Springs and then finally the Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, popped up in the gigantic flat Australian outback landscape. It looked like being painted on a postcard. Surreal. At the same time, our guide told us that we were lucky and could even climb the mountain. If we wanted to. The Aborignees consider the mountain holy and don't like people climbing their mountain. I do not believe in this spiritual nonsense and I have seen that Aborigines are more concerned about where to get the next beer than who has messed up their rock, so I did not care. Unlike a church, for example, the Aborigines did not build this mountain themselves. It is a natural place.

No easy hike

I took the opportunity, because only in 20% of the cases you had the chance to climb it and only a few months later it was forbidden forever. Also for this reason, there was a big crowd and a real queue of people formed to climb the rock.  Especially the older ones had big problems, as the hike is quite steep,  Uluru already counts already 37 dead hikers. People slide to their death especially when it is wet here or suffer heat stroke when it is very hot. In spite of the crowd of people everything remained well-ordered and I did not witness any garbage on the treks which the media wrote about. It took me 3 hours to reach the top. In the beginning you could help yourself with a chain that led up the rock, but further up you had to rely on the grip of your shoes. There are only a few ridges or stones where you can get a grip.

Feeling like on another planet

Once at the top, it feels like walking on Mars. My shadow seemed huge. It's unbelievable how such a high rock could be created here, surrounded by a flat plateau. Only a few had made it to the top. A large number of them were Japanese who, because of a famous film in their country, had the urgent need to climb the mountain.

Sunset over Uluru

Back down again, our tour bus took us to a lookout point from where a terrific view of Ayers Rock emerged in the evening light. In the afternoon the rock appears ochre brown, interspersed with dark shadows. When the sun goes down, the rock glows in burnished orange, then in a deep red before it takes on a charcoal-like colour. In addition they handed us a glass of champagne. A moment for which travelling is born. Wow!

Freezing at night

We reached our camp for the night and had to help preparing the food. Afterwards I was expecting my first night sleeping beneath the stars in a swag, a portable sleeping unit. If you want a room, you pay a lot of money here.

Our camp was located in a small camp in Yulara, near the camel farm we had visited before. Many other tour groups also stayed for the night. They even had normal showers and toilets. Our guide lit a campfire at night to keep us warm until we fell asleep. We spread out our swags side by side and then put the sleeping bag inside. One group member dared to sleep without a sleeping bag. He quickly realized that this was a stupid idea and had to wake up our guide in the middle of the night to borrow a sleeping bag because he was freezing. But even with a sleeping bag it was quite cold. In the outback, the temperature drops strongly at night. Where it was still easily over 20 degrees during the day, the nightly temperatures didn't get much above 0 degrees.  I tried to put the head piece over me as much as possible so that I was completely covered but also got some air. I also put a cloth in front of my mouth to avoid breathing too much cold air. Nevertheless, I did not get much sleep, but anyhow, we continued at 5 am in the morning.

Sunrise over Uluru and Kata Tjuta

We drove to a viewing platform from which you can see the sunrise over the Ayers Rock as well as over the Kata Tjuta rock formation. It is simply magic how the colours of the sky change practically every minute during the rising sun. Only the platform is quite crowded, because almost all tour groups have the same schedule.