Kelso's Great Aussie Adventure: Ayers Rock

(Sorry if it is a bit hard to hear this video - it was very windy!!)

We came, we saw, we conquered!

For anyone else who has been to Uluru before, you would appreciate what we mean when we say that Uluru blows you away with just how massive it really is, it is something worth seeing for yourself.

Uluru was one thing on all of our ‘bucket lists’ as something we wanted to climb (Jaime and Shell have climbed it before but the photos didn’t turn out last time so they always said they had to climb it again).

When we arrived it was closed due to being too windy and after speaking to a number of people we discovered that it doesn’t get opened very often. In fact one Ranger said that is only open about 60 times a year. Even though it was pretty warm when we arrived (about 30-32 degrees) we thought we make the most of the Rock being shut and do the 11km walk around the base of Uluru.

By the time we finished this walk we were hot and exhausted, we actually had to drown Cody and Aidan in water a couple of times during the walk to cool them off. Our issue, when we arrived back was that they had opened the Rock for climbing and although we were exhausted we knew this was most likely our only chance we would have to climb it so we went for it! (We found out afterwards they did not open it again during the time we were staying there)

It is a hard slog getting up that rock, - it is 348m up a slippery steep incline and then you have to “up and down” it across the top to reach the marker point. It is hard but we took our time and it was certainly worth it! We were not blessed with a clear sky, it was overcast and there was a lot of smoke haze but it was still a great view all the same.

By the time we reached the bottom our bodies were exhausted and we only had just enough energy to get back to the resort, set up camp, cooked a very basic dinner and climb into bed!

We enjoyed a rest day the next day, swimming in the pool and playing some giant chess games.

The following day we headed out to The Olgas and did the great ‘Valley of the Winds’ walk through them. This is a beautiful walk through the middle of the Olgas – in fact it is a much better walk than the one around the base of Uluru.

Before leaving the Uluru area, we paid a visit to the baby camels in the resort which had been orphaned after their parents were lost in road accidents.