EC-Rider Travels

Up at 3.45 and on to the Hop on Hop Off bus. It was absolutely tipping down, so with no chance of a sunrise, our driver made the briefest of stops at the ‘sun-rise’ platform and then kindly went straight to ‘the rock’. On the way the bus came to a grinding halt and the driver leapt out of the bus. We thought he had hit a kangaroo but no ….. he had spotted a frog on the road, which he gently moved on to the verge!

Unaware we were the only ones to do so, Sarah and I jumped out at the first stop and headed for the Multijulu waterhole which we thought might be pretty spectacular, and indeed it was, with water cascading all the way down the rock face into the pool below. As the light came up Uluru looked completely different once again; purple and black with its ridges much more defined and then suddenly it was all silver as the rain soaked the lichen.

We soon realised why no-one else had braved this route, as we found ourselves walking through floods up to our mid-calves! Hilarious, some places we could have almost swum in!

Still we were rewarded with lots of incredible waterfalls along the way and felt very privileged to be there. Apparently only 2% of visitors get to see Uluru like this.

We kept walking, passed a very damp kitchen cave and the sacred sites

, until we reached the second waterhole in the Kantju Gorge. Here there were a few others and the waterfalls were spectacular. The frogs were going mad sounding like a distressed herd of sheep! We raced back to the car park to meet our kind driver who got us to the hotel in time to quickly pack and check-out for the airport.

2.5 hour flight back to Sydney (though the Captain said Brisbane which was a bit unnerving!) and then an hour on to Melbourne where kind Tim was there to meet us. Quite tired now but it was so worth it.