The Red Centre
May 2024: Day 4

Sunrise over Uluru, the Mutitjulu Waterhole walk and Uluru sunset

Introduction

Another of the iconic "must do" activities at Yulara is to watch the sun rise and illuminate Uluru. It requires a very early start in the cold of pre-dawn, a 20 minute drive to the viewing area and then a cold watch as the sun slowly climbs to bathe the rock in sunlight. It all depends on a fine morning and not too many tourists. After the sunrise, we turned east on the ring-road and stopped at the Kuniya carpark. From here it is a short walk into the Mutitjulu Waterhole that we bypassed on our walk yesterday.

Many of the visitors to Uluru consider the sunset a much better experience than the sunrise. Parks Australia have created a large viewing area to the side of the main road, which is where we parked.

Uluru sunrise

Perhaps the weather was not optimal. Perhaps all the tour groups had taller-than-average visitors - but I think this part of the Uluru experience was over-rated. We drove to the viewing area in the pitch dark. The road signs were not always helpful, but we managed better than the vehicles we were following who took the wrong exit off the roadabout and ended up behind us. The parking area, although well laid out was not obvious in the dark. We were a few minutes too late. All the tour buses had just arrived and the crowds that they disgorged had already crowded out the viewing platform. There should be a regulation prohibiting tall people in big hats from standing in the front...

Looking east

Looking west - tall people should stand at the back!

Paying homage to the sun...

The viewing platform almost deserted.

Time Lapse of the Uluru sunrise

Although there was not much room on the viewing platform, I set up the camera to capture a time lapse, but I had to move the camera - twice!

Uluru sunrise.

Mutitjulu Waterhole

This is a side walk off the main Uluru base walk, or it can be done from the Kuniya carpark on the southeast side. The walk runs through bush to a permanent water hole at the base of Uluru. It is also home to one of the densest clouds of pesky flies in the region. It was the only location on our trip to Yulara when we regretted not buying fly nets to cover our head and face. After being chased away by the flies, we continued to drave anti-cloclwise around the base of Uluru, retracing our walking route back to the Mala carpark and then back to Yulara and our hotel for lunch.

So that's where those pesky Segways were coming from.

It's cool in the shade, but could you deal to all these flies?

Sunset on Uluru

We arrived that the sunset viewing area early, with the intention of securing a car park at the far end, near the exit. This location is considered to provide the best view, which was definitely the case after we had driventhe length of the carpark - twice. There is room for about 200 cars; there is a separate area for coaches. I set up a camera on a tripod to capture a time lapse sequence as the sun set and the colours of twiplight played out on Uluru. As soon as the sun had set most visitors drove off, eager to enjoy their dinner, be we and a small number stayed as the light dimmed and the rock turned dark red.

Uluru in the late afternoon sun - it's 1700hrs