Day 6 - Sunrise at Uluru

4am came and went, but at 4.15 we were motivated enough to start moving. Neither of us had had much sleep - who ever told us the temperature would drop at night was seriously seriously mistaken. The night temperature was only marginally cooler than the day, and during the day I wasn't stupid enough to lock myself into a canvas coffin, with little room to move and barely a gnats breath of air flow. Doug's wet pillow had helped turn his tent into a sauna, highly beneficial if sweat based weight loss was your plan, not for sleeping. Combine these factors with granite hard ground and its understandable why neither of us had got any rest. We'd completely re-packed the car the night before to accommodate the spare tyre from the roof (the roof rack was now back on and our collective fingers crossed) so all we really needed to do was throw the tents into the back where there was now sufficient room that they don't need to be packed up. We pulled the wagon away from the other campers and into a lit area, where we topped up the oil and coolant purchased yesterday. Heading off, I was behind the wheel as we drove the 90k to Uluru.

We'd seen animals darting across the road before today, but this was the hardest going yet. The sun wasn't even a glimmer on the horizon, and it was only Doug's superhuman night sight that spotted the kangaroo sitting in the road, before our full beam headlights had come close to lighting him up. With plenty of warning we were able to dodge around him, but it was the first of many creatures to battle it out, the rabbit which darted out from the side bushes wasn't nearly as lucky, and both of us heard the dull thud as the back tyre ran over him.

We arrived at the gates to uluru national park, spotting the sign saying 25 dollar entry fee we slowed to a crawl and we approached the seemingly unmanned booth. Time was ticking down to 6.04am and we still didn't know how far it was to park the car or where the viewing area was. With no sign of life, and no barrier (it was sat rather unhelpfully parallel to the road propped up against the building) we carried on regardless. Following the maze of roads,  Doug sat watching to see if the looming shape of the rock would emerge from the darkness. We eventually found the sunrise viewing area - empty of cars and with little in the way of information we parked up anyway. The clock was telling us it was 6.04 but there was still no hint of sunlight. The gps program I had installed on an old phone was telling us sunrise was at 6.27 so we settled back to wait it out. We left the car and followed some marked footpaths to where a small map showed a viewing area. The whole area was silent, looking out over the plain ahead (towards where the sun would rise) everything was pitch black, Uluru just a dark shadow behind us. Silence was blissful and eventually as our ears acclimatised we could hear crickets and birds and all sorts of other wildlife nattering away. This bliss was ruined by the sound of a Truck arriving and spreading freshly broken glass over gravel with a rusty metal rake. At least I assume that's what he was doing as it was the only explanation for the noise coming from his work area. By 6.45 road traffic started to come alive, with hordes of cars, campers and coaches pouring into the car park. People were now wandering everywhere and as light had been steadily creeping up the sky, we could just about make out their bleary faces, cups of coffee cupped in their hands, and many with jumpers and scarves on. Standing in my shorts and t-shirt with flip flops on, I wondered which planet they had come from, and can only imagine they'd been running the air con on the coaches at antartican levels. As the viewing areas began to fill up I was jostling a bit with people to maintain my spot. I was almost perfectly situated to photograph the sun coming up and also Uluru as the light levels changed. Of course this was a prized position to have and everyone wanted to get close to it. As the sun started to peak over the horizon the colours reflected in the clouds was fascinating, and overtime I looked at the rock, features became clearer or more defined. Eventually the sun cleared the horizon, and hazy sky could be seen underneath it. The rays were dancing all over the rock, shadows highlighting some outcrops, or making faces appear. Finally we decided it was time to move on, and we walked out through the now packed car park, past all the sensible folk cooking breakfast. We decided against walking over Uluru. It was a spectacular thing to behold which if treated right will be fantastic to come back to in 50 years to see how it has watched its surrounding landscape change but has remained the same. Plus - we dint have time with our busy schedule. Next stop on the itinerary today was Kings Canyon and we'd been told the rim top walk there was hands down better than what you could do on Uluru. This meant heading right back past our campsite from last night the road thankfully far less full of animals. The promised petrol stations seemed nonexistent however, so we arrived back at curtain springs running happily on fumes and reserve tank. It was fairly typical then that this was the most expensive petrol station we'd yet seen, and that it was my turn to pay. Our friendly danish boys came over to say hello, checking to see how the rock had been. They were also heading to kings canyon so on we went again, expecting them to catch up with us at some point. While Doug drove the next leg, I took a much needed nap to ensure I was fresh enough to carry on driving later. When we arrived at Kings canyon, the sun was high and hot. Filling up our water bottles we were dismayed to read the rim walk was 3.5 hours long. Then I read the information about it, it was a mere 6k and by the map the only tough part was a "steep climb" at the start.
"2 hours" I confidently claimed. After all it was only 6k. As we set off, the path meandered around some bushes and then suddenly we were faced with the steep climb. It was steep! Stratified limestone rock ledges, some hewn out, some cemented in, made a sort of higgeldy natural staircase, heading up and up and up. As we climbed my only encouragement to Doug was to imagine what unfit people would be suffering, as I'm sure many of the visitors would not be in the same physical condition as us preparing to do a ski season. About halfway up, we could see out into the canyon and from here the almost midway bridge crossing point was just visible in the distance. Maybe it would be 2.5 hours.