Uluru: Around the rock... or to climb?

 

Our second sunrise in 3 days time - at Talinguru Nyakunytjaku over a complimentary hot cuppa of coffee.

We were then allowed some time to walk around the rock, before the bus came back to collect us. We started on the Lungkata Walk and would have to be back before our flight during mid day.
Photography were forbidden on parts of the walk.

Lungkata is a blue-tongued lizard man, who came to Uluru after he heard that there were many other beings there and that the land was good. One day, he stole an emu wounded by Panpanpalala, the crested bellbird man. Despite knowning it was wrong to steal another hunter's food, Lungkata killed it and lied when Panpanlala came looking for it.

Anyway, after Panpanpalala realised he was tricked by Lungkata, he doubled back and lit at fire at the base of the rock. Overcame by the smoke and burned by the flames,  the great lizard rolled back down the face of Uluru and fell to his death.

As we didn't have much time, we thought we would doubled back and started on Mala Walk, then we saw there were people climbing the rock.

The first quarter of the climb looked fairly ok but there was one bit of it that is free climbing with nothing to hold on to. If you could overcome that, you would reach the bits with metal railing, all the way up to the top. I won't discuss the ethnical of whether to climb or not to climb, but there are a whole heap of rules before one would be allowed to climb.

Looking over to Kata Tjuta from Uluru

That was our last visit of the National Park before we hopped on our shuttle bus and headed back to the Ayers Rock resort.


Side note: I want to go into my hamster ball...