On the way to Kata Tjuta, we stopped at a place to climb up a sand dune to get a panoramic view. The dunes are very deceptive. Because of the vegetation, you don’t realize that they are dunes. But they are huge dumps of red sand and if you carefully notice, you can see the contours of all the sand dunes.

You may remember the picture of this from early dawn today. It is much longer than Uluru but is not one monolithic structure.

It was surreal to watch Uluru turning bright red. Everybody watched with pin drop silence.
You could feel the cold wind. And hear some birds waking up. Otherwise, there was complete silence as Uluru woke up.
The motto of the local Anangu aboriginals here is “Touch the Silence”
I touched the silence. And it was an out of body experience.

From our viewing station, we could see the Kata Tjuta in the distance. The colors looked ethereal!

We got bundled up (it is cold here with the wind) and headed towards the park early in the morning. Stopped on the path to take this shot.

We are a bit tired. We will be back tomorrow first thing to catch the sunrise and then later, the sunset. Apparently Uluru becomes bright red in the sun’s early (and late) rays.