MEL

Melbourne

AYQ

Ayers Rock

Northern Territory

Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon — the spiritual heart of Australia

Flight

Flight price

575 AUD

Stay

YHA

The Northern Territory spans over a million square kilometres — impossible to miss from the plane window as you cross the country. The Red Centre, with its endless golden sand and Aboriginal sites, is considered the spiritual heart of Australia.

✓ Visited in 2015

✎ this trip dates from 2015, and two things have changed since. Climbing Uluru has been permanently banned since 26 October 2019, at the request of the Anangu, the site's Traditional Owners. And two major installations have opened since: the Field of Light and Wintjiri Wiru. My prices from the time are kept as they were, with current figures alongside.

Red Centre

Uluru

Kings Canyon

Kata Tjuta

Outback

Kata Tjuta

01Getting there

A domestic flight remains an option from anywhere in the country, but the price climbs fast. In my case: Melbourne → Ayers Rock, 3h with Jetstar Airways, booked via Webjet for 575 AUD. Once there, shuttles do the rounds of the accommodations.

Driving a campervan also works really well — just keep an eye on the tank: some stretches take hours to drive without passing a petrol station.

✎ the airport is still called Ayers Rock Airport, code AYQ, but it serves the resort town of Yulara, some twenty kilometres from the rock. Every place to stay in the area is clustered there.

02The national park pass

This is the detail people consistently forget to mention: entry to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is not free, and the pass is compulsory for everyone, no exceptions.

3 consecutive days / adult (18 and over)AU$38

Under 18sfree

Annual pass / adultAU$50

✎ buy it online at uluru.gov.au before you arrive and you'll skip the queue at the entry station. There is no one-day or two-day pass, only the three-day format — which is plenty for both sites, a sunrise and a sunset.

✎ the park opens between 5am and 6:30am depending on the season, and closes between 7:30pm and 9pm. The hours follow the sun, not a fixed timetable.

03Staying in the Red Centre

As with the rest of my Australian trips, I'd booked a bed at the YHA hostel. Everything in the area, from campground to luxury hotel, is concentrated in the Yulara resort — there's no alternative, and the prices reflect that.

04Uluru & Kata Tjuta

Uluru is a sacred site for the Anangu, its Traditional Owners, and a World Heritage Site listed for both its natural and its cultural value — a rare combination. It rises 348 metres above the plain, and the path that circles it, the Base Walk, runs a little over ten kilometres.

Kata Tjuta, some forty kilometres away, is a cluster of 36 sandstone domes. The tallest, Mount Olga, reaches 546 metres — considerably higher than Uluru, which almost nobody realises. The Valley of the Winds walk is the main route through it.

There are countless ways to take both in: at sunrise or sunset, by helicopter, with an Aboriginal guide, or simply from your accommodation — the view is unobstructed everywhere in the desert. The nearest town, Alice Springs, is 450 km away.

I started with Kata Tjuta to explore its huge domes, before ending the day with a sunset meal facing Uluru.

Kata Tjuta excursion & sunset / person, in 2015AU$119

✎ booked through Sightseeing Tours Australia, pick-up in the early afternoon. Prices have obviously moved since: expect closer to AU$200 today for that kind of half-day.

✎ climbing the rock has been banned since 26 October 2019. It is no longer an option, whatever photos you may have seen. The Base Walk around it remains open and gives a far better sense of the site's scale — you only really grasp Uluru by walking at its foot.

✎ some parts of the rock are sacred and must not be photographed. The signs are clear on site and they should be respected: these are places tied to ceremonies still practised today.

✎ two installations have opened since my visit — Bruce Munro's Field of Light, a field of fifty thousand illuminated stems facing the rock, now permanent; and Wintjiri Wiru, a drone, light and sound show telling the ancestral Mala story, which opened in 2023. Expect around AU$200 for the twilight package.

05Kings Canyon

Halfway between Alice Springs and Uluru, in Watarrka National Park. Its sandstone walls, shaped by erosion, tower over red gorges and a palm forest. Allow a 4h drive from Uluru, then 3 to 4h to complete the six kilometres of the Kings Canyon Rim Walk — the view straight down into the gorges is worth every minute.

1-day excursion from Ayers Rock / person, in 2015AU$226

✎ booked through AAT Kings Tours. Very early pick-up, around 4:45am, breakfast included, lunch optional. That dawn start isn't overzealous: it's the only way to do the Rim Walk before the heat becomes unbearable.

✎ a safety rule worth knowing — the Rim Walk closes at 9am on days when the forecast reaches 36°C. In the southern summer, November to March, that happens very often. Carry at least three litres of water per person, whatever the season.

06Alice Springs

The best-known town in the Outback, 1,500 km from both Darwin and Adelaide. It began in 1872 as a repeater station on the Overland Telegraph Line, which connected Australia to the rest of the world for the first time — hence its position, in the middle of nowhere and yet strategic.

Today, it's mainly a starting point for multi-day desert excursions: heading down to Ayers Rock, camping under the stars, or discovering Aboriginal culture.

My time in the Outback was too short to stop there, so I don't have a personal take on the town.