Another day, another sunrise! Up with the alarm at 05:00, and onto the road at 05:45 for the drive out to the Kata Tjuta sunrise viewing point 34 kilometres away; it was pitch black as I left the hotel car park, and as I drove I could see the sky brightening behind me.
Parked up at the viewpoint, and I had to use my phones torch to find the path up to the lookout. Five minutes later I was looking at Uluru silhouetted against the coming dawn with some fantastic clouds.
It was at about this time I realised that I didn't have my fly net on my hat, so I made the return trek to the car park, asking if anyone had seen it in the dark. One lady said there was something she had thought was a t-shirt back near the car park. I asked another group, and a gentleman had put it on a post, so I found the post and retrieved my net; just as well as it was definitely needed as the sun rose!
As the sun rose, so the colours of Kata Tjuta changed; not as impressive as Uluru yesterday, but I think that after that anything else would pale in comparison.
Once again, as soon as the sun was risen the majority of folks departed back to their cars, campervans and busses, so I waited for the path to clear before making my way back to the car. I don't quite understand what the big rush is .... perhaps they were returning to the hotels for breakfast!
Not for me though, I headed further into Kata Tjuta as there were two hikes to choose from; I chose the Valley of the Winds, and it soon became apparent how it came by it's name. The aim here was to get to the second viewpoint before returning, so I set about the climb to the first viewpoint.
The trouble with wearing a fly net is that when you're facing into the sun all you can see is the net, so when I reached the first viewpoint I didn't really know whether there was a wonderful view or not .....
The second viewpoint was a further 1.6 kilometres along the path, so I followed it along some 'interesting' steepish rocks until it split; there is a loop path here so I followed the branch that would take me to Karingana Lookout.
Well, the path would lead there, but when I was met with a steep rockface with the guiding arrows going straight up the middle I had pause for thought. I was hiking alone, and although I would have been able to get up, coming back down would have been problematic. There are other days and other walks that I want to do, so it was at this point that I turned back and made the return hike to the car park.
As I made the 45 minute drive back to the hotel to escape the heat (it was warm enough already at 10:00 for me to reject the option of another walk in Walpa Gorge) I was trying to figure my time here. In my head I had the Kings Canyon trip tomorrow and then I was back on the road, but that didn't match with the 5 nights I have here.
When I returned to the room I checked my plans, and I'm not doing Kings Canyon until the day after tomorrow. This means that I've made a bit of an organisational muck up as my Uluru park pass expires today, and I'm not inclined to buy another 3 day pass just for tomorrow. There are lots of free activities and presentations here, so perhaps I'll explore some of them.
An early dinner again, and I was away from my room at 17:00 to make the 25 minute drive out to the viewpoint where I saw the sun rise over Uluru yesterday; it was sunset time. The spot that I'd thought could be a good place for a timelapse was ideal for setting up the GoPro, so I set that running at just before 18:00 for the 18:30 sunset and left it going until just before 19:00 ...... not because the show had completely finished, but because I was getting well and truly bitten by mossies!
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