Uluru at sunrise, as seen from the designated viewing area.
It’s the crack of dawn and you’re cruising down the highway on a Harley, cool wind in your hair. Okay, you’re actually on the back of a Harley with a helmet on. But an excursion with Uluru Motorcycle Tours through the Outback of Australia’s Northern Territory is still a pretty damn exhilarating way to start your day.
Uluru pops at sunrise, as seen from the Kata Tjuta viewing area.
Thirty minutes after setting out you arrive at Kata Tjuta, the sacred red rock monolith group formerly known as the Olgas, which lies 25 miles away from its sister and more famous monolith of Uluru. If sunrise is the best part of the day, then the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park surely ranks as among the most stunning places on the planet to experience that special hour.
First stop on your morning ride with Uluru Motorcycle Tours is at a viewing platform for the sunrise performance of rays lighting up the rock formations’ nearly vertical beds of sandstone. It's a double feature: In front of you lies Kata Tjuta, in the far distance Uluru.
Harleys parked at the entrance to Kata Tjuta's Walpa Gorge.
A few miles away, you get off the bike again for a hike into the entrance of the gorgeous Walpa Gorge which is a men’s sacred ceremonial site belonging to the Anangu people. The morning is as quiet and still as ever, as it has been over the nearly threescore thousand years that humans have come here.
The 327,000-acre Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, nearly 300 road miles southwest of Alice Springs, is not just a place of big rocks, but a living place. First inscribed in 1987 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it was added again in 1994 as a living cultural landscape, as the home to one of the oldest living societies on earth.
On a flyover, Kata Tjuta's domes stretch into the horizon.
Since the land was returned to the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) in 1985 the area has gotten a major boost in infrastructure, roads, and lodging, and today the Anangu traditional owners manage the park with Parks Australia.
The main base for all Uluru activity is Ayers Rock Resort whose handful of hotels such as Sails in the Desert make it essentially the 4th-largest city in the vast Northern Territory. The indigenous owned property group recently put five solar fields into operation, and has developed a hospitality training program for locals from the town of Yulara.
At day's end, you can enjoy a spectacular performance all over again. Sure, the viewing area in front of Uluru itself can be a bit like the Grand Canyon, with selfie-snappers galore and their snack-and-wine tables set up all over. But these days, British artist Bruce Munro’s Field of Light installation adds an extra dimension (see my last post here on the work that will stay up until March 2107.)
Guests with Uluru Camel Tours hit the sunset trail in front of the big rock.
You're not done, however. The next morning, as you drive in the dark to the discreetly-built sunrise viewing paths along Uluru's southern flank, it’s hard to imagine the colors that are soon to engulf the monolith and the red earth all around you. Over a good 30 minutes of your stay, every hue imaginable plays off the sandstone.
Later, as you walk around Uluru's base, or even take an invigorating bike ride around it, you recognize the details that make it a geology fan’s dream; it's riddled with pits and caves, and laced with water gullies. At various points, information panels recount the Anangu people’s genesis stories that emerged based on those very micro-formations before you. The nearby Cultural Centre was constructed in an indigenous design to represent the ancestral beings of Kuniya, the python woman, and Liru, the poisonous snake man.
A long, rich and colorful use of camels marks Australian Outback history. At the crack of dawn, or at dusk, the Uluru Camel Tours concession will have you up on your own cud-chewing beast in no time for an hour’s ride through the red sand and ridges that front Uluru. At the end, you’ll be served beer bread damper, the traditional campfire baked soda bread eaten by hearty Outback ranch hands.
For the ultimate in scenic adventures, visitors can jump in a fixed-wing plane that must follow precise plans to fly clear of the sacred sites, but nonetheless which comes close enough for a thrilling aerial perspective of both sets of monoliths.
Under a tent in the main public area of Ayers Rock Resort, guests who sign up for the Maruku Arts Dot Painting Workshop learn about the significance of symbols and Creation Time, or Tjukurpa, which is told within the Aboriginal dot paintings. You get to try your hand at creating your own story that represents your life journey.
At the small arts market on the lawn, you can also pick up pieces by local artists. Likewise, the lobby of the Sails in the Desert hotel hosts the Mulgara Gallery with high-quality art, jewelry and textiles.
For a high-end lodging experience, Longitude 131° lies north of Uluru and northeast of Kata Tjuta and has views of both. At Table 131° an alfresco dinner evening includes cultural shows and lessons from a resident astronomer who outlines the Southern Cross and shares Aboriginal tales attached to the Zodiac.
Climbing Uluru and the various rocks at Kata Tjuta is discouraged for their spiritual significance. It’s pleasure enough just to soak in the astonishing facts related to these great slabs of sandstone that extend several miles into the earth.
Each morning at sunset, the longer you stare, the more you realize that you are in a place where it would be a pleasure to wake up every morning Groundhog Day-style.
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