Australia for the Holidays
We typically spend Christmas in Colorado, and it’s cold in Colorado in December. This year my daughters asked if we could go somewhere warm immediately after Christmas Day. Sounded good to me too! I looked at the Caribbean, but the airlines make it difficult to get to the Caribbean in one day from anywhere west of Houston. So I looked the other direction and suggested Australia. My daughters had been several times, but my wife and son had never visited. I booked tickets from Colorado Springs to Sydney on December 26th.
Sydney would be good for summer and beaches, but my son is an adventurer, and likes hard-to-reach destinations (see Easter Island, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Maldives), so he asked that our trip also include a visit to Uluru, in Australia’s Northern Territory. I opted to add that on over New Year’s Eve, which surprised a lot of people. After all, Sydney is one of the world’s iconic destinations to celebrate NYE. Why would we leave? Well, because of the much higher prices and the huge crowds. Plus, if we were jet lagged even a little, staying up for the midnight fireworks could be a challenge.
Off to Uluru
We flew non-stop from Sydney to Ayers Rock Airport on December 30th. It’s a 3.5-hour flight and couldn’t have been easier. Sydney’s domestic terminal is only 20 minutes from the CBD and is amazing. You don’t have to show an ID or give up your water flying domestically! And wifi is free on Qantas.
We landed at Ayers Rock Airport, got our bags and rented a car. You don’t necessarily need a rental car if you’re staying at Ayers Rock Resort and doing only planned excursions through the resort, but we wanted a little more flexibility.
Where to Stay at Uluru
Most Uluru hotels are part of Ayers Rock Resort, just a few minutes from the airport and maybe 20 minutes to Uluru itself. We opted for the Emu Walk Apartments since they had setups for five people and seemed to have them to ourselves. The hotels on each side of Emu Walk, Sails in the Desert and Desert Gardens, looked far more full. It seemed like most tourists were Japanese or European.
We loved our apartment setup. Our kids got the bedrooms and my wife and I slept on the Murphy bed downstairs. We didn’t use the kitchen for much, but we took advantage of having a washer and dryer.
The apartments are also right at Town Square, with shops, restaurants and a grocery store. We walked over several times.
And there’s a short hike to an Uluru overlook that leaves right from the Sails in the Desert / Town Square / Emu Walk area.
What to do at Uluru
We had two nights and almost two full days at Uluru. The main things we did were:
Uluru Base Walk
In the summer it can get very hot, so you want to start your base walk early. We drove over before sunrise and started our walk right at sunrise. The base walk is 10km / 6.2 miles, and it took us just over two hours. I had read online that it took 3.5 hours, which maybe it does if you have a storytelling guide or if you’re walking slow or taking breaks. But really, you can walk it in under 2.5 hours. It’s completely flat.
I really enjoyed this walk overall. It’s a sacred site for the native Anangu and one of the iconic destinations in the world, and it was far more lush than I thought it was going to be. We saw maybe two others for the first 90% of the walk, before encountering several groups towards the end. The high that day was only 99F/37C, and it was perfect from 6am to 8am while we were there. It’s not unusual for summer temperatures to be a lot hotter, so we lucked out.
We took bug nets along and most of us used them. The bugs weren’t terrible but they were definitely annoying, and the nets helped.
Wintjiri Wiru and Sounds of Silence Dinners
We booked the Wintjiri Wiru dinner our first night and Sounds of Silence dinner our second night. I had heard good things about both, and since we were there two nights, it made sense to book both. In retrospect we probably should have just done one.
Wintjiri Wiru
For the Wintjiri Wiru dinner experience, you’re picked up at your hotel around 1.5 hours before sunset, you have cocktails and dinner at a platform overlooking Uluru, you experience the Anangu Mala story with the largest continually-operating drone show in the world, and then you return to your hotel. The three-hour total length was good, the setting was perfect, and it wasn’t crowded. The food is inspired by the Outback, and includes kangaroo, emu, crocodile and ants. I really enjoyed the entire experience. My kids enjoyed the drones. They weren’t fans of the ants! I’d do this one again.
Sounds of Silence
Sounds of Silence is one of the iconic dinner experiences at Uluru. I should note that the normal Sounds of Silence site is being renovated (early 2025) so we were at an alternate site above the Field of Light.
There were a lot more people at Sounds of Silence than at Wintjiri Wiru. We were initially led to a small landing with a great sunset view of Uluru, but it was too small an area for all of the people. Then we walked down to the dinner site, with a lot of round tables set up and a buffet dinner. The food was good, but I heard one person say that the entire experience felt like being on a cruise ship, and I thought that was a perfect description.
The highlight was a 20-minute star talk. I LOVED this! Even with a partly cloudy sky, the night sky expert made the sky come alive. I wish that part had been longer.
Then we walked back to the buses through the Field of Light, an enormous art installation, with over 50,000 lights. It was beautiful, but after almost four hours at Sounds of Silence, we were tired and eager to get back to our room. It seemed like most people beelined for the buses.
I’d probably recommend Wintjiri Wiru over Sounds of Silence just because it was an hour shorter and felt much more intimate. I can’t speak for the standard Sounds of Silence experience at its permanent site.
Australian Native High Tea
Our second afternoon we walked over to Sails in the Desert for its daily Australian Native High Tea. This is a traditional high tea experience, but with a menu inspired by the Outback. Everything was very good (no ants!) and the tea and hibiscus/prosecco Bellini’s were excellent. I’d absolutely do this again.
Departure from Uluru
Heading back to Sydney couldn’t have been easier. We filled up our rental car at the only service station, just a minute or so from the apartments (US$9 total which included two trips into the National Park), and drove a few minutes to the airport. Rental car return, check-in and security probably took 15 minutes total. And because of tailwinds, the flight back to Sydney is under three hours. Note: sit on the right side of the plane for one last view of Uluru.
How Much Does it Cost to Visit Uluru?
In general Australia is expensive, and Ayers Rock Resort has a virtual monopoly at Uluru, so visiting Uluru like we did added up. Our round-trip flights over New Years were US$1,870 for five people. The rental car (through Hertz) was US$306. Our superior apartment at Emu Walk is US$1,197 for two nights in the summer. Wintjiri Wiru Sunset Dinner is US$807 and Sounds of Silence is $788 for four adults and one child. The Australian Native High Tea was US$213 for the five of us. The Uluru base walk was free, but we needed a National Park Pass to get in, which was $70 for three adults. If you have fewer than five people, most of those costs come down substantially. For example, rooms at Sails in the Desert and Desert Gardens for four people were far less expensive than a five-person apartment at Emu Walk Apartments.
A Note on Visiting as Media
I started booking this trip normally, but then a friend put me in touch with Tourism NT, and they offered to partially host us, which was very nice. They also got me permission to photograph the Wintjiri Wiru drone show, since usually photos aren’t allowed.
What I found most interesting about visiting as media is that I received two briefings via Zoom on what I was allowed to photograph and what I couldn’t. Uluru is sacred, and as you’re walking around, there are signs asking you not to photograph certain areas. And only certain images of Uluru as a whole are allowed. It’s why you typically see photos from the same angle and at certain times of day. The left side needs to be in the shadows or photos aren’t allowed. All photos in this post and on my social media were approved by Parks Australia. And they also requested that I include the following notes:
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
As custodians of the land, Anangu hold the Mala story from Kaltukatjara to Uluru. To share their story, RAMUS designed and produced an artistic platform using drones, light and sound to create an immersive storytelling experience.
