Off to See the Wizard - Yulara Day 2

Having completed the base walk around Uluru the previous day, we ventured out again yesterday to take part in the guided Mala Walk section of the rock.

During the walk we were shown some cave art.

This was in a cave where young men were taught the lore. Apparently some of the paintings date back 20,000 years.

Next was the Men’s Cave.  In the traditional owners teachings, a devil dog from another tribe came to the area to destroy the local Mala people. Many were able to flee but some men were turned to stone in the cave.  You can see the man on the left quite clearly.

We visited a couple of other caves as well, including one that you could see through.

When we completed the walk and returned to the car park we were greeted by an unexpected sight.  You can’t see it clearly here, but there was quite a procession behind the banner.

We wondered how they would go carrying this around the full base walk, but they only walked a short way.

Next, we went for the 50kms drive to the Olgas or Kata Tjuta as they are correctly named, where we had lunch at one of the lookouts.

There a few walks you can do. One of the short ones is Waḻpa Gorge.

What struck me, was how different the geology is to Uluṟu.  Where Uluru is a sandstone, Kata Tjuta is a conglomerate of various rocks, mainly granite and basalt and that is the surface you are walking on.  It isn’t a defined smooth path.

The walls of the gorge area really steep and high.  Kata Tjuta is actually higher than Uluru.

Once you are deep it the gorge there is a small creek trickling away. The reflection in the pool was lovely.

Of course, we were all taking each other’s photos.

It was incredible seeing huge conglomerate boulders on the ground, where they had fallen at some time in the past.

The other walk is the Valley of the Winds.  This has a couple of stages, the first being easy, but the others difficult and longer.  As the day was getting on, we opted to just do the easy walk to the Karu Lookout. It wasn’t as spectacular as the gorge.  I believe the second lookout is much better.

Our final activity for the day was to watch the sun go down over Kata Tjuta.  We reached the viewing spot way earlier than needed, so we sat back, enjoyed the view and our afternoon tea.  Very peaceful and relaxing.  

As it neared sunset a few others arrived and the ubiquitous photos were taken. We were a nice little group who got on really well. I thought there would be more there.

Then we got down to the serious business of watching the colours change as the evening progressed.  There was a fellow there that teaches photography and he told us to stay way past sunset to get the best colours.  He told how many people leave after the first flush of colour and miss the best.  He was right.

I loved how the red sand started to glow as well, once the sun had set.  The sun had been set for about half an hour by the time the last photo was taken.

As the sun set we started to hear some birds calling. We have no idea what they were, but we hadn’t heard them during the daytime.  They made a very pleasant background.

I always like to see what is happening behind me as well.

It was pretty nice as well.

As we started to drive back, it was interesting seeing the shadows on the rocks.

I tried to get a photo of them as a silhouette, but not terribly successfully, as we were too far away by then.  However, the colours in the sky were still beautiful.

The highlight of the day would have to be the sunset.  Mick’s was the peacefulness of when we had our afternoon tea.