Advice on Alice Springs, Uluru and Kings Canyon

jonnybravo

Hi All,


Just wondering has anyone done Alice Springs Uluru and Kings Canyon on their own and not in a tour. Flying in and out of Alice Springs and have 4 full days there. Was thinking of renting a car or just getting the bus between the sights if thats possible.

Any advice is appreciated.

jonnybravo

Anyone???

Thinking of hiring a campervan - anyone do this or recommend a better way to do it?

Cavehill Red

Been a couple of years since I was there. I found it a depressing and ultimately unrewarding place to visit, given the distance, heat and expense.
Basically, a travel group effectively has all tourism captured at the area. The indigenous people have a closed reservation and little say in what happens, and even littler share of the visitor profits.
There are a choice of accommodation options at Yulara, a few km away from Uluru and Kata-Tjuta, all run by the same people, at different price levels, all expensive.
Tours operate from there, usually led by some Anglo Aussie who's in the area for 6 months to earn money before going travelling.
To do it without being captured takes some doing. Some tours operate from Alice Springs (involving long bus journeys). I don't recall any car hire being available at Uluru's airport, so hiring a car is going to involve driving from Alice or further.
I flew in from Sydney for a few days, bit the bullet and booked into Yulara. But from there, you can arrange to tour around Uluru with actual Aboriginal locals rather than the ubiquitous Anglo kids. There's a small visitor's centre run by the locals near Uluru that you can visit too, though it mainly functions as a souvenir shop and cafe.
The place is in the middle of four deserts, very hot all year round, and everything is flown in and hence very expensive indeed. It also hives with nasty little black flies, and Yulara is plagued by strange quiffed pigeons.
The best time I had there was hiking through part of Kata-Tjuta. The locals prefer if you don't climb Uluru, but all the scumbag Japanese do anyway.
Is it a global icon? Undoubtedly. But ultimately, I found it a disappointing place to visit.
Good luck with whatever you decide. But if you do decide to give it a miss, I personally don't think you'll have missed a lot, given the expense.
Having said that, watching the colours on the rock change at dawn and dusk was sort of fascinating.

Mahatma coat

I too flew straight to Yularu Accom was very expensive, as was everything else, but it was nice.

I however Climbed the Rock, and that was Well worth traveling out there for.

the Abboriginee interperative centre is a bit rubish alright.
thew questiun you should ask yerself before you go is how will I handle knockin about on my own in the Desert, Me I love it, others hate it, you'll never really know til yer on yer Tod in the desert;)

DavMar

We did it 9 years ago with a tour guide. Six of us by jeep, was called camping in style I think! Guide was older Kiwi who wasn't a pain as described above! We had choice of climb or base walk and we did the walk. Then travelled the couple of hours to kings canyon . . . best done during the day because of the heat. We climbed kings canyon very very early and were up there for sunrise, no one else about which was excellent. Met everyone else coming up as we were coming down. Then drove back to Katja tjuna, and then back to uluru for sunset. Agree with previous poster, sunrise and sunset fascinating. We did all our driving in the middle of the day, we were there in summer so heat fairly unbearable at times. Our guide although a kiwi had lived in ireland as a child and had red hair so was a bit obsessive about keeping us out of the middle of the day heat! And it was nice not to have to worry about driving as distances between uluru and KC is quite long. We stayed at the outback pioneer backpackers at the time. Not sure if its still there but wasn't too expensive if i remember. Enjoy if you go, I wasn't bothered too much but am glad I went.

roryc

This is much, much, much easier to do with a group tour, and 10 times more fun. Its about $300 (+ $25 park fee) as far as I remember for the 'Rock Tour', and this entails all your expenses for the three days. It prob works out cheaper than doing it yourself tbh...

First day you see Kings Canyon, do a 7k hike around it on the first day. Then the tour guide drives you to the outback and you have dinner cooked there over a campfire and sleep under the stars in a swag.

Second day you drive to Kata Tjuta (spelling?) and do another hike, and your tour guide will give you a history lesson on Aboriginals etc. Same again at night with food, but you stay in an actual camp ground near Uluru.

Third day you get up early to watch sunrise at Uluru, optional 10k base walk, or climb Uluru (maybe banned by now). After this you drive back to Alice.

I have done this twice now with two different sets of friends, and would gladly recommend it. The tours carry about 30 people each, usually 90% full of backpackers and you are sure to meet a good crowd.

The cheapest and best way of seeing it IMO, pointless doing it yourself, I know people who left the car in Alice and went on the tour

Good luck!

whyulittle

And then dinner and drinks in some barn back in Alice.

jonnybravo

Cheers for all the responses. RoryC who did you book your tour with? Did ye camp in tents for the two nights?

Radiotower

I done it a couple of years ago on a tour kinda thing but there was only about 12 on the bus. I rem it was the cheapest available out of Alice. 3 day tour, taking in Kings Canyon, Uluru and the Olgas.

We slept out in the swags around the camp fire (no tents), which we had to find the firewood for ourselves, prepare our own food, etc - the only luxury was that we didn't have to do our own driving which was fine by me, I got to do plenty of that from Broom to Sydney!!

I flew into Alice from Sydney and back from Uluru - the only thing was the operator told me that there was showers at the airport in Uluru which there wasn't - I'd say I didnt smell great on the flight back to Sydney after 3 days in the outback without washing facilities!!

I enjoyed the trip, was travelling on my own so it was good to meet up with other people going solo. Our driver was a sound ozzie guy, great fun. I didn't climb the rock - I dont think anyone did from our tour but I walked around the base - took a couple of hours so gives you a good sense of the size of it. The sunrise was the pretty impressive too.