Early Morning At Uluru

It was still pitch dark at 5:40 AM as Ian woke me up to hear if I wanted to get up and see the sunrise – Jann had already told us the night before that she intended to sleep in! – At the moment it seemed like a good idea to me also, but I thought better of it, and got myself untangled from the nice warm sleeping bag, slapped some cold water in my face, and was ready for sunrise way before the sun had any intentions to come up! We walked up to the lookout spot in the dark, and as we got up there we could barely see a bit of light glimmering in the East, the stars still shining brightly in the sky – it was still a long way until sunrise, which was around 7:20 AM, so Ian suggested we drive out to the park and watch it from there, since we had plenty of time, so off we went.
There were already lots of other cars out there, and people milling around trying to keep warm in the chilly morning air. The sky slowly turned soft lavender, and the Uluru started glowing orange as the sun climbed up over the horizon – yes, it was well worth the early rise!
We drove around the rock as the sun continued climbing up and setting the Uluru on fire with oranges and reds, deep purple shadows – stunning! On the way we could also see Kata Tjuta coming aglow in the distance – what a beautiful beginning to the day!
We stopped at the café on the way back for coffee and some fresh muffins to bring back to camp, and our timing was perfect as Jann was just getting up!
The rest of the morning we just took it easy, Jann and Ian walked the grounds, I took a shower and rested a bit – it had been an early morning and I was feeling it!