For some weird reason, it decided to pour rain in the desert last night. This did not bode well for our plans to climb Ayer’s Rock this morning, as the climb can be closed with little or no notice for various reasons (heat, rain, wind, wet, cloud, rescue and culture). We headed to the rock anyways and our suspicions were confirmed – closed due to “Forecast Rain”. The chance to climb Uluru was right in front of us, yet was out of reach because the forecast for the rest of the week wasn’t very promising. It’s really too bad because it seems likely that the Uluru climb will be closed down permanently in the future. 
We headed east out of Uluru to see these giant domes called Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), that we had seen in the distance when we first arrived. We got there well before 11am to make sure we could do the Valley of the Winds walk before it got too hot. Almost immediately during the 7.4 km walk, we noticed that Kata Tjuta had strikingly similar characteristics to the Bungle Bungles we saw in Western Australia, particularly the dome shape and striations in the rocks. 
We still think that the Bungle Bungles were more impressive though. It was an enjoyable walk that snaked through the valleys between the domes, with an amazing scenic lookout of the landscape. We drove to King’s Canyon to complete our Red Centre experience. The 6 km walk around the rim of the canyon took us several hours. We stopped so many times to look over the edge and marvel at the 270m drop to the canyon floor (and throw some rocks). During the walk, we saw dozens of ring tailed dragons. They were very curious and not afraid of the camera.
Willy took a cool, refreshing swim at the Garden of Eden waterhole before meeting up with an Australian couple on the trail. We met up with this couple again back at the campground and shared stories all night. After hearing some of their stories that they’ve heard from other travellers, we’re happy to say that we haven’t had anything stolen and our risks have been relatively minor. We also noticed we weren’t the only ones in the camp shelter tonight as a couple of dingos have been circling us all night with a watchful eye for food scraps. It’s a little un-nerving that these wild dingos have no fear and wander so close to us. I’ll be listening for them tonight.
PS. If you check out the background picture of our blog, it is one we took of the Bungle Bungles in Western Australia. 
