Saturday 21 July – Another wonderful day,
though the night leading up to it was a bit of a challenge. Went to bed last night at about 20 to 11,
read for a bit, then fell asleep. All
good so far. Then at 2am and again at
4am we were woken by loud bursts of fireworks being let off here in the park –
in fact pretty close to here. There were
five or six loud explosions each time, and you could hear some talking and
laughing. So that was a bit of a bummer
so far as getting a good night’s sleep! And so much for the smart a…’s who
obviously thought it was funny.
Relaxed this morning, before preparing a
bit of food for lunch through to early evening, then left at about 11.30 for
Kata Tjuta, about fifty kilometres distant.
I reckon they have been ripped off as I think they are equally as
stunning as Uluru, but they don’t get the attention it gets. First walk we did was the Walpa Gorge walk –
2.6km return, but much rougher walking than the base walk we did
yesterday. That took us about an hour,
and the scene at the end of the furtherst extent of the walk was beautiful, and
so peaceful. There wasn’t a sound to be
heard.
After lunch we drove a couple of kilometres
further along the site and set off on the Valley of the Winds walk. We only intended doing one leg of the three
stage walk. The entire walk is 7.4km and
rated as difficult, so we opted for the Walpa Gorge section of 2.6km and rated
as moderate. Again the walk was
beautiful, very rocky which I find hard on the knees, but the view from the
first lookout showed us beyond to other formations and domes in the site. It was lovely, and did in fact certainly live
up to its name – the Valley of the Winds.
We really only ambled along for this walk –
let’s face it – ambling was all I was capable of. But as we had a lot of time before sunset, it
didn’t matter. After we had finished
that walk we drove to the sunset over Kata Tjuta viewing spot, packed our
thermos and eats into our backpacks and went and found ourselves a good spot to
watch the sunset from. It was fairly
quiet until about 6pm when a bus load arrived, and we spent quite a bit of time
talking to a couple from Orange who sat themselves down next to us at about
five o’clock.
The sunset was magic – better, I think, than
the one over Uluru the other night. The
colour is so vibrant as the sun goes down.
Once the sun set we made our way back to
the camp, tired but very, very satisfied with the time we have spent here. Now for a good sleep tonight in preparation
for our drive to Kings Canyon tomorrow.
Please, no more fireworks!
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