A First-Timer's Guide to the Red Centre

The Red Centre is the part of Australia that lives in the imagination long before you arrive: a flat red desert broken by a single, impossible rock. Uluru deserves the attention, but the region rewards travellers who give it more than a flying visit.

When to go

Visit between May and September. The dry-season days sit in the low twenties, the nights are cold and clear, and the brutal summer heat, which regularly tops forty degrees, has passed. Spring brings wildflowers and milder weather but also the first of the flies.

Start with Uluru

Give Uluru and Kata Tjuta at least two full days. Walk the ten-kilometre base track in the cool of the morning, watch sunset from a viewing platform, and set aside a separate morning for the Valley of the Winds walk through the domes of Kata Tjuta. Climbing Uluru has been closed since 2019 out of respect for the Anangu traditional owners, and there is far more to see at ground level anyway.

Don't skip Kings Canyon

Three hours north-east, the Rim Walk at Kings Canyon climbs sandstone walls a hundred metres high before dropping into the lush Garden of Eden. It is the single best half-day walk in central Australia.

The ranges around Alice Springs

The West MacDonnell Ranges stretch west of Alice Springs in a chain of gorges and permanent waterholes. Simpsons Gap is the easiest to reach and a reliable spot for black-footed rock wallabies at dusk.

The other rock

On the drive in, you will pass a flat-topped mesa that looks, for a moment, exactly like Uluru. That is Mount Conner, known to the Anangu as Atila, and locals call it Fooluru for the number of travellers it deceives.

Practicalities

Most visitors fly into Ayers Rock Airport at Yulara, the resort town twenty kilometres from Uluru. The roads are sealed and a 2WD is fine for the main sights. Carry far more water than you think you need, and respect the no-photography zones at sacred sites.