Starting off small: Kata Tjuṯa

Tuesday morning, more tours and demos at the resort: First, we participated at a garden tour, learning about the plants and trees in the desert and what was/is eaten by the Aboriginal people. Below, a photo of the Australian Desert Fig and the "Honey Gem" or Honey Grevillea, used for jams and other sweets.

 

The "Bush Food Experience" (below) - our next "lesson" - gave even more information about plants, herbs and berries, honey ants and "Maku" (maggots), which were a welcome protein for the indigenous people in the area. They like their kangaroo and emu meat, too, but we've been told, that there are not too many kangaroos in the area anymore (one reason might be the camels, which were introduced by the early explorers and turned wild after they left). We neither saw kangaroos nor camels or emus,,, Just geckos in the room and on the resort's pathways,,,

Didgeridoo workshop (below) next. They call it "didge", by the way, and the guy who showed us how it's played and what is important (breathing/lips/tongue) was a musician himself and did a great job in dismantling clichés and wrong assumptions.

For the afternoon, we had booked the Kata Tjuta Sunset Tour by bus. You can either rent a car or take a bus tour (different options there) - all are pretty expensive (as is food and restaurants). We were wondering, who's profiting from all the money they make at the resort, which is operated as of recently by an American company? Anyway, the tour was worth the money. Actually, one can say, we started the wrong way: with Kata Tjuta instead of Uluru, but this was caused by the 1-day-pass and the bus schedule.

Meaning "Many heads", Kata Tjuta is sacred to the local Aboriginal Anangu people, same way as Uluru. They inhabited the area for more than 22,000 years. Kata Tjuta is a group of 36 large, domed rock formations and one of the two major landmarks within the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. They are  composed of conglomerate/sedimentary rock (granite/basalt/sandstone) and the highest dome is called Mount Olga (550 m above the plain).

The closer you get, the more impressive the formation looks! There are only two trails available, the longer Valley of the Winds Trail and the shorter Walpa Gorge Trail (2 km one way). For the sunset tour, you only have the option to hike the latter one, before driving to an observation point to see the sunset. But, even this 1-hour walk into the gorge was very impressive - see photos below. It was unusually green and lush, too, because they've got plenty of rain recently.

Kata Tjuta in different lights below. Though sunset wasn't too spectacular (clouds!) it was fascinating to see the color changes and I took heaps of pictures:

 

The real highlight to follow tomorrow: Uluru,,,