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What to See on a 4-Day Tour of the Red Centre in Australia
On an extended trip around Australia, the Red Centre is an excellent area to visit for 4 days after you’ve visited Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. The Red Centre is located in the Northern Territory in the central-northern part of Australia. It gets its name from the vast deserts of red sand you can’t miss on a visit to this area.
Here you’ll find famous sights including the mysterious and iconic Uluru (also called Ayers Rock), Kings Canyon, and the town of Alice Springs.
Read on for an itinerary to help you plan and prioritize your sightseeing in the Red Centre area, with a focus on Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and Kings Canyon.
Itinerary: An Uluru to Kings Canyon, Australia Tour in 4 Days
Day 1: Arrival – Ayers Rock
If you’re visiting the Red Centre from Cairns, I’d take an early morning flight—expect the flight time to be about 3 hours. Also note that the Red Centre is in a different time zone 30 minutes behind Cairns.
This flight offers superb views, with dramatic vistas of red soil and rock formations of the Australian Outback.
Where to Stay: Ayers Rock Resort
Ayers Rock Resort is not only a place to stay in the Red Centre. It is the place to stay. The resort has a monopoly on lodging and owns seven properties grouped together in a town.
Assuming you’re staying there, it should send a shuttle to meet your incoming flight, then take you to the resort.
Emu Walk Apartments is a good value choice here considering where it’s located. At more than $300 per night, it’s also likely to be one of the most expensive places at which you’ll stay on a tour around Australia. However, the amenities are good; your apartment may have a king bed, a sofa bed, a full kitchen, and a good bathroom. Here, as in many other places in Australia, you’ll find complimentary tea and coffee in just about every hotel room.
If your room isn’t ready for you to check in, you can explore the complex for a little while.
This is a good time to walk over to the town center and make onward arrangements for transport to Kings Canyon if you haven’t booked this online already. Booking with the AATKings bus company will probably cost you $135 per person from Ayers Rock to Kings Canyon. From
Kings Canyon to Alice Springs, the price will be around $159 per person.
You can also reserve spots for an excursion to see Ayers Rock with the same company at around $55 per person per excursion, plus an extra $25 or so for the mandatory Uluru Kata-Tjuta 3-day pass needed for entry.
The costs of all of these things add up, but you don’t really have other good options at a lower price. Experiences like these are also why you’re here, presumably.
While you’re in the town center, consider buying a hat with tassels to protect against the sun and swarms of horrid flies. If you’re lucky, frosts during July and August will kill off most of the fly eggs. I was not so lucky, and visited right after a particularly warm winter. That made winter flies a much bigger problem than usual that year. If weather conditions are similar when you visit, you can probably count on swarms of horrid flies.
The Best Time to Visit Uluru
Uluru is a remarkable place that’s worth visiting multiple times, as its appearance will change—sometimes dramatically—over the course of the day and as the weather changes.
Late afternoon is probably the best time to visit Uluru, because that’s when the rock will change color most visibly and rapidly as the surrounding light changes with the sunset.
Book your excursion with AATKings. The pickup time should be at around 5:30 p.m., more than an hour before sunset. The drive will provide an introduction and some interesting commentary en route. Also note that Aboriginal peoples in the vicinity might show up during your trip, trying to sell paintings to tourists.
Enjoy the views of strange green trees, green and yellow underbrush, and red soil framed by blue and gray clouds on the way to Uluru.
The bus will drop your group off at a prime Uluru/Ayers Rock viewing location. There you will find tables filled with complimentary drinks and snacks of excellent quality. There will probably be champagne, juice, cheese and crackers, vegetable trays, and chips and salsa to enjoy during the “show.”
The rock really is very impressive in the late afternoon light, shifting in hue from pale brown to yellow to orange to red to violet to brown. It is especially scenic when dark brown and framed by yellow underbrush and dark gray skies.
The sun will set and your bus tour group will depart perhaps 10-15 minutes later.
Day 2: Valley of the Winds/Kata Tjuta
I’d recommend spending the next morning hiking through the Valley of the Winds (Kata Tjuta) at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, via a reputable transportation company like AATKings or Uluru Express. Kata Tjuta, also known as The Olgas, is not as well-known as Uluru/Ayers Rock. However, in some ways, it’s better and more scenic.
Find a shuttle service that will pick you up well before dawn. Proceed to a lookout from which you can see both Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta as the first orange rays of the sun start to creep across the sky.
After you’ve watched the sunrise, take the actual hike. It should last just over 3 hours, probably from a little after 7 a.m. until about 10:30 a.m.
Later that day, you might try some traditional Australian delicacies at the on-site restaurant at Ayers Rock Resort. The Tastes of Australia Plate provides an interesting sampling of these. You can have a crocodile skewer with mango lime dressing, smoked wallaby napoleon with tomato marmalade, an emu medallion with braised red cabbage, and kangaroo mignon with salsa verde for an interesting and memorable meal.
Day 3: Walk Around Ayers Rock and Travel to Kings Canyon
Several years ago, tourists could hike around Ayers Rock. However, since late October 2019 this activity has been banned. Local authorities cited the fact that Uluru is sacred to the indigenous Angangu people. Moreover, the climb was sometimes dangerous with strong winds.
At the time of writing, there are no signs that this prohibition will be reversed. If you’ll be spending the rest of the day at Ayers Rock, you can walk the entire 10-kilometer circumference of Uluru.
Alternatively, if your time is limited and you’re moving on to Kings Canyon this morning, pick one of the most scenic sections for a partial circumference walk.
Regardless of which option you choose, it’ll be much easier if you do it early in the morning when it’s still cool and comfortable outside.
During my walk, I saw a gorge, numerous trees around a water hole, and black streaks along the sides of the rock left by water and algae growth. Be aware that flies can get to be a big problem an hour or two after sunrise.
If you’re going to Kings Canyon today, return to your hotel, gather your things, and check out. One fine transport option is the AATKings bus to Kings Canyon.
It’s a long but scenic bus ride, and your driver may relay some interesting insights. For example, camels have become a serious problem in Australia. Originally brought over in the 19th century to help early settlers settle the outback, the Afghan cameleers let them go when they had served their purpose. Today over 1 million camels roam the territory of Australia. Attempts at population control have been largely unsuccessful. The camel population keeps on growing, and they have displaced many indigenous plants and animals.
If you take the 11:15 a.m. bus, you should arrive at Kings Canyon by 5:30 p.m. Walk over to see some of the rocks at sunset.
A good lodging option here is Kings Canyon Resort, which has an on-site restaurant. There you might order steak and kangaroo platters with salad while listening to live music.
Watch out when you return to your hotel room in the dark; the door may be covered in creepy crawlies, such as a giant hunter spider or a praying mantis.
On the plus side, the sky out here is a sight to behold, filled with stars and a big swath of the Milky Way.
Day 4: Hike Kings Canyon and Travel to Kings Creek Station
For your final day in this part of the Red Centre, Australia, I’d recommend getting an early start to hike the challenging Rim Walk at Kings Canyon. Note that this is a fairly strenuous 6-kilometer hike over rough terrain. The bus driver should drop you off at the entrance to the canyon where your guide will meet you.
The views on this hike are stunning. After a short walk down an easy trail, you may see a small obelisk-shaped monument dedicated to Jack Cotterill, who opened the region up to tourists in the 1950s.
Then climb a somewhat steep and difficult 500 steps cut into the side of a mountain. The path winds through reddish canyons and giant slabs of 400 million-year-old sandstone. Small green shrubs and trees dot the landscape, and a number of sections will be illuminated beautifully in the early morning light.
A huge expanse of valley and mesas stretch into the distance from various lookouts. One one floor you may see the fossilized remains of sea slugs. Erosion has carved out interesting patterns in some areas resembling giant natural staircases, and the ripples of sand in a vast ancient lake has been captured as fossils in some places.
Eventually, you will come to a place called the Garden of Eden, which is a waterhole surrounded by ferns and other foliage. Wallabies, euros, and other animals come here to drink sometimes. Also very interesting is the series of natural rock domes that resemble the roofs of a city from a distance.
You should finish the walk by 9:30 a.m. This will give you some free time before pickup at 10:00 a.m., so you can do some exploring of the second path as well. Return to the hotel to freshen up, have some snacks, and finish packing. You can get a souvenir or more snacks from the general store. Then meet the bus and be on your way.
Take the bus to Kings Creek Station, arriving a little after noon. The place has a camel and cattle farm, so there you can try their famous camel burger and wash it down with a lemon granita.
Then continue your journey. En route, the driver may tell you more about Aborigines. Interestingly, the language of at least one tribe has half the letters of ours, is completely factual, and has no past or future tense. Thus, members of that tribe have no understanding of time, and one who had been incarcerated immediately hanged himself because he didn’t understand that authorities intended to keep him there for only three months. Furthermore, there are tribes of Aborigines in the vast, desolate desert of Australia’s center that have never seen a white person.
Onward to Alice Springs
The bus will arrive in Alice Springs late in the evening. Alice Springs is another worthwhile stop known for its exotic animals—I’d highly recommend taking a full day to explore this Outback town.
