2018 – Part 56 – Trip planning Advice – Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park
Of all the places we saw during our trip, visiting Uluru is the single most impressive place we visited. I recommend the visit! Now, for a few pointers to help make your visit great.
Location
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is not close to any major city, or well, any city or town. Alice Springs, boasting over 20,000 residents, is over 400 km away. There is a purpose built town and tourist accommodations in Yalara. This serves as a home base for visitors as everything is at Ayers Rock Resort.
Even when staying in Yalara, expect that the drive to Uluru will take upwards of 20 minutes, and almost an hour if going to Kata Tjuta. We stayed for two nights, and upon our day for check-out we both agreed that a 3rd day would have provided us with another opportunity to experience Uluru, and enjoy being (almost) in the middle of the country.
As this is the middle of the country it’s the land of extremes. Talking with one of the maintenance staff he joked that on New Years Eve he recalled how it was 37C at 1am. In mid May, during our visit, it was a cool start in the single digits, but quickly would reach 20C. With the extremes, tours are geared to occur near and shortly after sunrise, and before sunset.
Booking
Accommodation for every type is available. Road tripping? There’s a campground for your camper van. There are several different classes of hotels, all of which are located relatively close together in Yalara. Booking like almost any hotel today, can be done directly or through a 3rd party booking site.
Tours
Again, your choice, whether self-guided or through a company. Based solely on the quantity of buses I saw during our stay, AAT Kings is the largest operator in the area. I cannot recall other operators, however do your research to select your tour, if tours is your plan. Out of the tours we did, the most moving was led by a local Anangu guide. His family stories made visiting Uluru even more poignant and personal than all the signs and notice boards that we at the park.
Make sure to visit the Cultural centre. This too helps to provide context, and history of Uluru. One critical note is that some parts of Uluru are not recommended to be photographed, requested by the Anangu. Putting the phone and camera away provides the chance to enjoy the location without having to prove it constantly online.
Now that you may have looked up airfare, hotels, and tour costs you realize that…
Prices are what?
Expensive. Very expensive. This is hundreds of km away from a small town and everything had to get there, and Australia isn’t an inexpensive destination.
This, was part of my justification for our selection of resort while at Uluru. Adding up all the costs (hotel, food, tours, park admission) and a visit to Uluru will be expensive even by Australian standards.
I understand that this can and will be a block for some people, however I’ll leave you with my final thoughts on,
Why go?
When booking this, I felt this was going to be a 100% photo-op stop. It’s only a red rock, right?
It turned out to be much more because of the experience. During our short visit, we walked a portion of the base of Uluru, and watched on two nights the rock glow a brilliant vibrant colour during sunset. At night I have never seen so many stars in real life, I caught myself on a few occasions thinking “this is just like being at a planetarium”, however it is a reproduction of what I spent hours staring at one night.
This was the complete opposite of what our final week in Sydney would hold. A final few days surrounded by Australian outback and sand, that was completely different from staying near the CBD in a bustling city.
As I go through the pictures from our time here I still can’t believe that we visited Uluru and stayed where we selected.
Read more about our trip by clicking here.