Is Uluṟu worth the trip?
When we were planning our three weeks in Australia, visiting Uluṟu wasn’t a priority for me. But eventually we decided that we might regret going all the way to Aus and not seeing its most famous landmark.
And I’m so glad we went. Seeing the monolith up close was way more impressive than I had imagined. And even though the weather wasn’t great during our time there (29-33°c but cloudy with some rain) it was amazing to see Uluṟu in different conditions to the famous photos.
How long to stay at Uluṟu
We flew from Sydney to Yulara (Ayers Rock airport) which took just under 3 hours. You could fly to Alice Springs which is a 5 hour drive away, and will mean you need longer here.
The best times to see Uluṟu are sunrise and sunset, and due to the heat some walks close at 11am if the forecast is over 36°c. So while you could fly in and out within 24 hours, spending two nights here is probably better.
This gave us time to see two sunrises and two sunsets – increasing the chance of seeing the rock at its best. Because of the clouds we were able to do both the 10km Uluṟu base walk and The Valley of the Winds walk at Kata Tjuṯa.
Where to stay at Uluṟu
The only place to stay in Uluṟu is the Ayers Rock Resort. There are a number of different types of accommodation available for different budgets, from the campground to a luxury hotel. We stayed at the mid-range Outback Lodge and Hotel, which has a pool and a couple of different restaurants.
The resort is about 15 minutes drive from the sunset point. You can walk or drive to the ‘town square’ from all the accommodation and there’s a free shuttle bus that runs every 20 minutes. The IGA on site is a good place to pick up snacks and lunch foods as the on-site restaurants are very expensive.
Driving at Uluṟu
We hired a car from Hertz at Yulara Airport, which was fairly well priced and definitely worth it. If you can drive, hiring a car is by far the best way to get around Uluṟu Kata Tjuṯa National Park. It’s huge, and even the sunset points are about 15 minutes from the resort.
There are coach trips you can join if you can’t drive or don’t want to. But you will be limited by their timings and the locations that they go to. The one catch with hiring a car is that there’s a 100km per-day limit (which is combined across how many days you have the car. So we were able to drive 200 km across two days).
This doesn’t sound too bad, but the reality is you’ll almost definitely exceed this if you plan to to go Kata Tjuṯa and visit the sunrise and sunset spots twice a day.The fee for going over this limit isn’t much, but it’s still annoying.
What to do at Uluṟu
The main things to do here are within the Uluṟu Kata Tjuṯa National Park. To enter, you need a parks pass which is valid for three days. They do check this on the way in and you’ll be asked to buy one before you enter if you don’t already have one.
See the sunrise and sunset
The Uluṟu Base Walk
Kata Tjuṯa
Field of Lights
Cultural Centre
The Gallery of Central Australia
Find out more about which of these activities we did, which we liked best, and what we would have done differently in my blog What is there to do at Uluṟu?