Day: 085
Date: Thursday, 24 September 2020
Start: Yulara
Finish: Yulara
Daily Kilometres: 111 (click for Julie's Strava and photos and here and here for our walks)
Total Kilometres: 8744
Weather: Cool early, then sunny and warm all day.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Egg sandwiches
Lunch: Beef, cheese & relish sandwiches
Dinner: Meatballs & pasta/Chicken pesto & pasta, ice cream
Aches: Nothing significant
Highlight: The 8km Valley of the Winds walk at Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) was awesome. The rough trail climbed amongst the gargantuan brown conglomerate rock domes, passing through narrow gaps and revealing a hidden quiet little forested valley, before looping back over the low arid shoulder of one of the domes. Although a little on the warm side, it was comfortable hiking weather and we had it mostly to ourselves, only meeting a few other hikers.
Lowlight: None really. We were dreading our 50km+ ride back from Kata Tjuta to Yulara into the wind after our hikes, but it wasn't that bad.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
Neither of us relished the idea of waking at 5am after our long day yesterday, but we were keen to try and see dawn breaking on Kata Tjuta. We didn't expect to get to the official "sunrise viewing area", 38km away by road from Yulara, by the time the sun rose, but we were hoping to get close enough to be able to see the sun break on the mountains from the road. It turned out to be a bit of a race against time because the topology conspired against getting a clear view until we got quite close. Every time we cleared one dune, another seemed to be in the way, or the roadside trees were just a little too high. We probably should have got up even earlier!
Finally, we did get some spectacular views as the sun lit up the mountains, and a few kilometres further on reached the lookout atop a dune where we had breakfast surveying the wonders of nature. Just as we were self-congratulating on having the peaceful scene totally to ourselves, another car arrived, and then shortly after, a coachload of tourists! From there we rode the remaining 15km to the Valley of the Winds trailhead, dominated by the massive domes of rock, locked our bikes to a tree, changed out of our cleats into trail shoes, and did the spectacular 8km walk (see above).
We then decided we had time to do the other, shorter, Kata Tutja walk before we left and rode the short distance to the Walpa Gorge trailhead. The hike was out-and-back up into a gorge between two massive rock domes that became progressively more narrow until the trail ended at a lookout that gave views up to the end of the blocked gorge and also back west towards the vast desert plains.
On returning to our bikes, we ate lunch in the cool of a shelter, then set out on the ride back to Yulara. The expected headwind turned out to be fickle and we made reasonable time, with much of the last half dominated up ahead by the mass of Uluru looming over the red sand dunes. I thought to myself that there would be a lot of people who wouldn't mind trading places with me right then, and reminded myself how fortunate I was to be there.
We arrived back at Yulara soon after 3:30pm and stopped by the supermarket for a welcome ice-cream and to pick up some food for dinner and breakfast, before returning to our tent about 4:30pm. After showers, we hung out in the camp kitchen where we had dinner before heading to bed. Another great day done!
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