We all got up at just after 4am so that we could have breakfast and get to the Sunrise lookout. It only took an hour or so for everyone to get ready, and we left at quarter past five. There were light hearted accusations of snoring thrown around and I confessed that I was a snorer, though the blame was later shifted from me on other nights!
None of us (apart from Terry), knew where the lookout was, so as we went past Uluru, and it started to get smaller on the horizon, we started wondering if the sunrise had been forgotten about.
We just got to the Kata Tjuta lookout in time, but due to the overcast weather, the sunrise was a very short affair, with no real glimpses of the sun, after which the sun remained behind clouds. We joked with Terry that we were marking him down on trip advisor for failing to provide a sun rise, which of course was outwith his control!
After we had taken our fill of photos, we got back on the minibus and headed to Kata Tjuta proper to do the Valley of the Winds walk, arriving there for 7am.
Kathrin was the only person to turn up wearing only flip flops, and seemed to be walking a lot slower than everyone else. By this stage of the tour, we had all gotten over any awkwardness, and it seemed as though we were getting on with each other. We did wonder though about the decision of Kathrin to turn up wearing flip flops, and she said that she hadn't realised that we were doing the walk right after the sun rise.
Terry had suggested that we just do the 'there and back' route, which seemed either to be because of the flip flops situation or because he didn't want to walk the whole distance. He pointed out some interesting features, which included the fact that one of the cliff faces looked like an elephant.
Another Groovy Grapes tour, going the other direction, were also at this walk, and Tery asked their guide if he knew what a particular rock was. The response was negative, and Terry explained that it was a rock that looked like a toad/frog. That one seemed to be pushing it a bit, and as far as I can tell was just an excuse to get the girls in the groups to kiss the rock to be able to get their prince charming!
We set off again and I commented about how te Valley of the Winds made me think about Nausica, which Shiho cnfirmed she also had similar thoughts on that.
Not long after this, we reached the top of the pass, with the views of the rest of Kata Tjuta between the valley of the wind. Before Terry and Kathrin arrived, the rest of us made the decision that we all wanted to do the whole route and see everything there was for the path, rather than go back and see the stuff we had already seen.
While we let the others catch up, we all took various photos and poses in the Christmas hat that Pam had taken, and I took a shot of the fluffy otter I had taken, given that it was the least likely place to find an otter!
Terry agreed to the whole route option, and Kathrin didn't seem to mind either. The weather was not so hot that it was an arduous trek, and the worst part realy was the first descent, which was potentially slippy rock.
At one point, some of the girls started to go down a river bed instead of along the path and had to be called back, to comments of "Oh, I thought it had gotten a bit rocky!".
We made it back to the minibus at around 10.30am, after much waiting for Kathrin. The good rapport between the rest of us kept improving and we always had stupid or funny things to talk about amongst ourselves, as well as the ubiquitous giving each other a hard time over things!
One of the points that was noted was that Kathrin must feel quite awkward through being the slow person in the group. We all made it to the bus in one piece none the less, and set off back to the campsite at 10.30
We stopped off at the shops before the campsite to buy souvenirs. I decided i needed a new shirt, as they proved to be the most effective way to keep cool in the hot weather. All of the shirts that i could find were A$60 though and i wasn't prepared to fork out that much. Just before i left the shop though i found a rack with discounted stock, including a bamboo fibre shirt reduced from A$60 to A$25, so i got that!
While we were in the shop, the was a heavy downpour of rain, making us all glad we were inside, but it had finished by the time we got to the actual campsite to make lunch.
Lunch was salad sandwiches, with everyone chipping in to help, and we were ready to leave for the Uluru Base walk for 20 past 1. By now there has been plenty of comments from everyone that we couldn't believe that it was Christmas eve, as it was so or of the ordinary compared to what any of us had done before.
We started off the bar walk with the Nala walk, learning about the aboriginal mythology behind the rock, and what some of the areas were used for, such as teaching the children cooking, or some meditation.
The last part of this section of walk was a waterfall gorge area with a pond at the bottom, wich had tadpoles almost turned to frogs swimming about in it. On our way back from here, we came across a black salamander which was just sitting on a rock.
Fortunately a tourist ahead of us had spotted it and alerted us, otherwise we would have all trounced past it, oblivious.
It was 3 in the afternoon by the time the Nala section was done, and Terry advised us that he would wait for us in the bus while we went on our own round the rock, estimating it would take us 90 minutes to get round.
As we walked around, we noticed that the ground was swarming with ants, so we were hopping from foot to foot whenever we stopped to take photographs. Some sections were designated as areas that it was not permitted to photograph, due to the sacred nature of the site, but it was still worth while stopping to admire the view.
For most of the walk we were leap frogging each other, though slowly the main group pulled ahead of Shiho and myself. We were both taking our time and stopping to take photos more than the others.
We discussed the idea that Miyazaki had spent a lot of time in the outback and that it was his inspiration for films like Nausica and other Ghibli studio films. Some of the rock formations were like the robots from the castle in the sky, and the scene with the living rock was like glow worms.
There were parts of the path that were not navigable, due to large puddles, and we had to find other ways around, and sometimes we thought we may have stayed off the path for longer than we had, but eventually we reached the cross roads marking the route to the gorge waterfall Terry had recommended we do. This allowed us to catch up with Kathrin and Bea, the others had already gone down the leg to the waterfall.
Everyone regrouped shortly afterwards, Shiho and myself didn't bother with the gorge part, and then Vanessa and the rest overtook us.
It was looking to be later than the scheduled finish point by now, so the rest of the group hurried along without stopping much, again leaving Shiho and myself behind as despite it being later on we didn't feel the need to rush, rather wanting to enjoy the experience of being at the rock.
As we rounded towards the carpark and started to recognise the profile of the rock, we noticed that there was a dark rain cloud heading our way, and that fulfilled its role by being a full on downpour just a couple of minutes before the bus.
As such we both arrived on the bus soaking wet, as we had decided reaching for the waterproofs was too much effort so close to the bus. The others had all arrived 15 minutes before us so had escaped the downpour - they admitted they half ran the last parts because of the time and the fact they had seen the weather much earlier!
Vanessa told us all how far we had done in the day based on information from her fitbit - we had walked 14 miles and taken 35,000 steps (assuming strides were comparable to hers).
We headed back to the camp, and enjoyed spagghetti bolognaise for dinner, though I'm not sure what Kathrin had. Everyone had chipped in again for this meal and the washing up was done efficiently. While the dinner was being prepared, Terry and I arranged a tarpaulin to help protect the kitchen area from the rain that was now being fairly persistent.
I set up a drop box account for everyone to share their photos with everyone else, and then once we had all had showers and gotten the swags ready, we settled down to watch "Priscilla queen of desert", a road trip story ivolving King's Canyon which we were set to walk tomorrow. We eventually got to sleep around half past midnight, with another scheduled wake up time of 4!
I found it much easier to sleep tonightnow that I was used to the wildlife noise, and I was soon fast asleep, oblivious to the world.