Climbing "The Rock"

21st June 2013

A later start this morning, given the full on day we had yesterday, meaning that after breakfast, showers and pack down it was about 10.15am before we left the caravan park. The girls were very keen to climb "The Rock" today so we headed straight there.

The climb up Uluru, for those who haven't seen it is almost vertical for about 800m up to the top of the rock and further on from there. After about 50m, there is a chain for climbers to use to pull themselves up the face of the rock, pretty challenging stuff, but as I said, the girls were keen.

So we set off on the climb and after reaching the chain, I thought that would be as far as we'd go, but again the girls were still keen, so we pushed on. We climbed another 200 - 300 metres up, when the height became a bit too much for Mags, so as we agreed at the start, (it was one in all in)  we all edged our way back down to the base. I was so proud of the girls for even wanting to give it a go, let alone get as far as they did.

Yes it is that steep - on the way down after our climb

After a bit of consoling at the base, we walked a portion of the base walk and took in some significant aboriginal sites which included some areas of rock art, which was just fantastic to see. We then had to go back into town and grab a few things before saying goodbye to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

Walking the base of Uluru

It really was an amazing experience, for me Uluru certainly lived up to expectations and it will be a place I will return to again without a doubt!

We left Yulara around 12.30pm heading for Erldunda, which was a roadhouse / caravan park that George's (Rachel's uncle from Darwin) wife, Sandra was living and working at, so given that it was only 245kms away, we had to stop and say hello.

We arrived around 3.45pm and found Sandra still at work, so we said a quick hello before setting up camp for the night. After her shift, Sandra came down to say hello where we caught up for a little while, before Sandra had to call it a night and we organised to catch up again in the morning before she started.

The night was spent at the tavern on site, where we treated ourselves to some good pub food and settled in to get my fix of Friday Night Football. West Coast played Hawthorn and unfortunately we lost, but regardless it was a good game, especially given that it was the first game I had seen in about 4 weeks.

Almost the perfect way to finish another awesome day on our travels!