So last weekend I went to Warrumbungle for bushwalking and visit a private observatory with a bush walking group that I occasionally hang around with. And that was the question that bumped into my head while was preparing for the trip.
Bushwalking group – some new people and some old faces
The trip went well, there were plenty of wildlife at Warrumbungle, beautiful scenery too.
Wallabies in front of headlightsCute, fluffy apostle birds
Looking forward to the day when humans permanently land on Mars and give a definite answer to that old, profound question: ‘is there intelligent life on other planets’ and answer: ‘yep, we put them there.’
Things didn’t become better – first there was a water leak on the outbound plane. We sat near the very back and when we reached our destination, the rear door at back failed to open. So after waited for ages at the back of a long queue, we finally picked up the rental car and when we reached the campground, the cabin we had been given could not be locked. Later, the resort changed us to another cabin.
Cabin at camping ground
But that didn’t stop us driving to uluru-kata tjuta national park later that afternoon. After a short tour around the park, we waited for the sunset at designated area. There was no awe-inspiring experience induced by the colour changing rock because it was cloudy!
The trip went well despite all the small glitches.
The amazing scenery started as early as in the middle of the flight, the landscape in the centre Australia was rather flat, tinted with red hew and occasionally adorned with colourful lakes.
Colourful lakes – bird’s-eye view from planeWaterways? – Bird’s-eye view from planeSunshine – bird’s-eye view from plane
The resort at Ayers Rocks consisted of 5 few hotels & resorts, including a campground. There was also a police station, a post office, a few restaurants and a small supermarket. That’s all pretty much it, and it’s in the middle of no where, hundreds of kilometres from the closet town, which was Alice Spring. To my utter surprise, there was excellent mobile coverage. Judged by the amount of solar panels in the area, electrical for the whole place probably came from the sun.
Solar panels at Yulara resort
We spent the late afternoon of the first day and early morning of the second day in the vicinity of Uluru, visited the culture centre, stopped by the sunrise and sunset viewing areas and took a short stroll near the monolith itself.
Close up of the monolithA small cave in the Ayers RockWalking trail at Uluru sun rise view area with my parents in the distance
By the noon on the second day, we moved on to Kata Tjuta. I can now understand why the area is a wonder of the world – because the landscape is strange, it’s either relatively flat desert or a bunch of huge rocks in the middle of nowhere.
Me at Kata Tjuta dune viewing areaKata Tjuta
That afternoon we drove to Kings Canyon, there no mobile reception anywhere along the road. Despite the lacking of cars and the highway being rather narrow(1 lane in each direction), the road to and from Kings Canyon was very well maintained.
NT state route 3
Scenery consisted mainly of sparse vegetation, red sand, redder sand and red sand stone that is likely to degrade into red sand one day anyways. That is, unless you stop somewhere and take a closer look. There were plenty of interesting little things around.
An ant hillUnknown melon
There were plenty of dingos in the Kings Canyon region. I was amazed by how docile those semi-wild dogs were. Smart creature probably had learnt that by behaving like a dog, they had a better chance of score some food from tourists. Even though feeding dingos were prohibited in many areas.
A dingo
Landscape at Kings Canyon was somewhat, special too. Those rocks reminded me of dome shaped, multilayer pastry. Yum.
Cliff top at Kings CanyonCliff at Kings CanyonMe acting stupid at Kings Canyon
Due to pareidolia, many petrified supernature figures were found on the cliff top. Those included a turtle head camel and a skull (pictures below):
Turtle head camelSkull
Drove back to Uluru the next afternoon/evening. Only on the way back did we see some cows. There were also plenty of salt lakes in the area. We stopped by and walked to one to take a closer look.
Salt lakeLasseter Hwy/State Route 4
On the last day we set out early for the sun rise again. This time, the sky was clear and sun didn’t hide behind clouds.
Crowd at Uluru sunrise viewing area
We also visited the camel farm nearby.
Camel
Even before the trip, I was hoping to sight a gigantic wedge-tailed eagle, but instead we saw a small black-breasted buzzard or it could be a small kite – it’s bird of prey the size of a pigeon on the road.
Bird of prey
The whole trip was great, despite that wedge-tailed eagle were all busy and only greeted by a small kite.