Kata Tjuta

So, now that we have reception for a few days here in Alice Springs we are catching up on our blog posts and trying to fill you all in on what we have been up to for the last two weeks.  Prepare yourself to be ‘gorged’ out as we have done heaps of beautiful walks through some spectacular gorges and have a tonne of photos to share!

Kata Tjuta (also known as ‘The Olga’s) are the large doomed rock formations which also make up the same national park as Uluru.  We purchased the three day national park pass for $25 per adult (kids were free) for the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and after spending the first two days exploring Uluru we decided to spend our last day in the park checking out the ‘rocks’ we had seen from Uluru.  After walking all the way round Uluru the previous day, we had planned to just take it pretty easy at Kata Tjuta, but when we got there we couldn’t resist the 7.4km full circuit ‘Valley of the Wind’s Walk’.

It was a pretty tough walk and took us about 4 hours with the kids but they managed pretty well.  We did piggy back Lexi for a bit and she fell asleep on my back for a short time but the boys again walked the whole way.  This walk was quite interesting for the kids as there were lots of little water holes to stop and play with their ‘leaf boats’ in.  At first we tried to hurry them along or get them to look around at the views a bit more – but then we realised that this was what the walk was all about for them – the simple pleasures of finding their next perfect stick or leaf to sail down a creek – so we left them to it and they were happy to keep plodding along.  I must admit I was quite sore after climbing the rock in the same morning we tackled this walk so I probably found it harder than anyone!  The scenery made up for the pain though – it was beautiful!  Again – another walk not to miss if you head out to Uluru.

The Valley of the Winds Walk – very hot and dry – would be a really tough walk in summer!

Karu Lookout – about 1km into the walk

The domes are really interesting to look at

Quite steep and rocky in parts

A stop to check out a small creek

Karingana Lookout – really spectacular – very hard to capture it with the photos

Family shot

Time to finish the walk down to the bottom and around the domes to the other side

Leaf boat racing

Beautiful wildflowers as we walked back through the valley at the base of the domes

Lex and I waiting for the boys to catch up

We finished the walk all quite tired and hot and sweaty, but then we decided it would be a real shame to waste the last hour of sunlight and not do the short (2.6km return) Walpa Gorge walk.  The kids did dig the heels in on walking again but we piggy backed Lex and Tobe to start with until they were happy to walk again and there was also the reward of poppers and chips and dip at the end!  Because it was so late in the day we had the gorge to ourselves which was quite a treat and although not as spectacular as The Valley of the Winds Walk – it was worth the effort at the end of the day

Walpa Gorge Walk

Walpa Gorge

Tired but happy!

We had the place to ourselves!

There wasn’t much of a sunset on this day but still pretty special sky!

Matt getting clever with the camera

‘Super Moon’ on the drive back to our campground at Yulara – very hard to capture!

The beautiful ‘Olga’s – definitely worth the drive out to them!