Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia, Australia

I woke up this morning hoping to see the makings of a nice sunrise, however, it was still overcast and raining. I decided that there was no point in making an early exit and stayed in bed for a bit longer than planned. I finally decided to get up and leave by about 9am. Angus and I said our goodbye’s and went our separate ways.

The drive to Yulara (the town that Ayers Rock Resort is in) was pretty boring considering I had to backtrack about half of the trip I had just made to get up there two days ago. And I was hoping to have better weather conditions for picture taking, but crazily, it was raining harder today than it was yesterday! I really can’t believe my luck. Regardless, it was a quick drive with only one stop at Curtin Springs to get some gas (at a ridonculous $2.13 per litre!). I got to the hostel at about 1pm and threw my stuff in the room and headed straight out.

As crappy as the weather was, I figured I didn’t drive all the way out here to sit in a 20 person dorm room (yeah, that’s right, 20!). So I went out to Uluru (Ayers Rock) to see what it looked like in the rain. As nice as it would have been to see it in the rain, I’m counting myself very lucky that I got to see it in the rain. Not many people can say that went to Uluru and got to see waterfalls coming off the top of it, especially in their dry season. So as miserable as the conditions were, I was actually cheered up when I got out there. I did two of the short walks around the base, as the climb was closed due to weather. The top of the rock was actually covered by clouds, so it was a bit dangerous to climb up there, and visibility would have been zero anyway.

I also can’t understate just how big this rock is! I had seen loads of pictures of it before, but until you’re standing right next to it, it’s hard to picture just how big this monolith is. And not only is it massive, but it totally doesn’t fit into its surroundings. There is nothing around it, not even little hills or anything. There are hundreds of miles of nothing, and then all of a sudden there’s a rock monster right there. Very strange.

So I’ve come back to the hostel and met one of the other guys in my dorm room. Stefan from Germany had just come in today and he didn’t make it out to Uluru today, so he didn’t get to see the waterfalls, haha! There’s not really much to do here either, even though there’s a little more around than up at King’s Canyon, so it’s an early night for me. Hopefully it won’t be raining tomorrow and I can get a better view of Uluru, the way most people see it.