The Rock Tour: Kata Tjuta and a handshake with Uluru

Before the sun was even up, we awoke to Dingo saying "it's time to get up my little muchkins." Most people were taking a little longer than usual to emerge from their swags, mostly because it was freezing as soon as you stepped outside. I looked over an mom had not even moved yet. I nudged her to make sure she was alive. She hadn't even heard our wakeup call, or the several others he made when people were not moving fast enough. We managed to get out and roll up our swags, mostly powered by the promised shower that would occur once everyone was packed up. We loaded onto the bus and drove down to our next campsite, which had toilets (flushing toilets) and hot showers. Yessss.

Today was Kata Tjuta, Uluru's less famous sister formed by conglomerated rocks rather than sand. Kata Tjuta is pretty insane, and much more treacherous to walk than Uluru (unless you climb Uluru, which you shouldn't- I will explain later.). First, we had to walk through (well, Dingo had us mostly sprinting through) the aptly named Valley of the Winds. You literally were fighting these insane winds the whole time, so you were freezing and pushing again the gale force winds which climbing over uneven rocks. We finally made it to a grassy area and the winds died down dramatically. Dingo conducted a geology lesson in the sand, explaining the differences in Kata Tjuta and Uluru and how they were formed. Then he sent us off on our own and mom went with him for the less strenuous walk. "Keep the rock on your right at all times. Rock right, rock right. And it should look this size at all times too. If it gets this size **holding out thumb and finger distance apart** you are going the wrong way." We set out, only to have him shout immediately "no, you're going the wrong way! Rock right!" We turned and went down a different path. I never really got "rock right" because we were kind of in valleys and there were rocks to the left and right of us at all times, but I suppose we made it since I am typing this to you now. Our group trekked over loose rocks and steep hills for about 45 minutes until we reached this insane hill. I sighed, hating all hills, but slowly made my way on the crazy shifting rocks to the top:

Mom was up there with Dingo and the group reunited to make the full circle of the Kata Tjuta trail (which I later learned after looking at the culture center guide book is classified as "Difficult" and suggests more time than we were given to do it). We finished Kata Tjuta, which included at least one additional insane hill, this one going down, and with little to no gripping texture to walk down. We made our way again through the valley of the winds, this time less windy because it was later in the day, and loaded up into the bus. Lunch was wraps at a rest stop kind of place. Then we were taken on a brief detour down a red dirt road, one that extends all the way to the coast, for picture opportunity. I took pictures of Dingo laying in the dirt in the middle of the road:

And he took this cool picture:

Next we had several hours at the cultural center to learn about Aboriginal significance of the Uluru and Kata Tjuta area. We were not allowed to take pictures of anything, but there was a book there called a "Sorry Book" filled with letters from people sending back artifacts or rocks they had stolen from the sites. It is believed that you will be cursed with bad luck if you do this, so most people had returned the items with letters of apology. After the center, we did a short walk around a fraction of Uluru called the Mala Walk. We saw some rock art and Dingo told us a dreamtime story about a devil dingo that resulted in the dingos we have today. At some point in his story, he climbed up on a rock and leaped over my head to the ground. It was an entertaining way to get the message across and I felt like we should have applauded when he ended it. We did the rest of the walk without him to a waterhole area. It was weird to me to see a waterhole out there, but the area near it seemed lush with trees.

We drove up to the sunset viewing area and drank some of our copious amount of beer we had purchased the night before. Dingo made us dinner of noodles and vegetable and chicken and I took about 50 different shots as the sun went down.

After a brief pit stop for gas and a much needed bathroom, Dingo once again performed a techno music, strobe light, fist pumping, whistle blowing ride back to the campsite.

Drinking continued back at our campsite, and Dingo later took us out to a platform a distance from camp where the lights would not interfere with star viewing. We laid on our backs and looked up as he pointed out different things in the sky. You could see the milky way and 2 solar systems. It is always so shocking to me to see the outback sky. So many more stars than you are ever used to seeing. Sleep was once again in swags and I caught one of the German kids throwing empty cans at mom during the night to try to get her to stop snoring. Joke was on him, she didn't stop, ha!