Sunrise and sunset viewing
Talinguru Nyakunytjaku sunrise viewing | Sunset and sunrise maps and guide | Talinguru Nyakunytjaku guide
Watching the colour of Uluru and Kata Tjuta change is spectacular. At sunrise, the giant monoliths emerge from the inky landscape, changing from purple through to rusty browns and red in the golden sunlight. Sunsets can be particularly spectacular when the sun sinks through cloud formations.
The colour changes result from the effects of the earth's atmosphere on the sun's incoming rays. The ash, dust particles and water vapour present in the earth's atmosphere act as a filter which can remove the bluer light from the incoming rays of the sun, allowing the redder light through at different times of day. Reflections from the rock and clouds in the sky enhance the vivid colours.
There are specific parking areas constructed at the best locations to view and photograph the sunrise and sunset at Uluru and Kata Tjuta. See our maps of the park for these locations.
Traditional Inma ceremony at the Talinguru Nyakunytjaku opening celebrations
Talinguru Nyakunytjaku | new viewing area
Talinguru Nyakunytjaku simply translated means 'to look from the sand dunes'
Talinguru Nyakunytjaku offers visitors stunning new views of both Uluru and Kata Tjuta from a previously inaccessible area of the park. The area allows visitors to see Uluru and Kata Tjuta in the wider desert landscape of spinifex covered dunes and swales, dotted with kurkura or desert oaks.
This is an area that provides different views throughout the day, changing with the seasons. Here you begin to understand the journeys of the creation ancestors and the stories they left in the landscape.
Able to accomodate up to 3000 visitors, the area provides several viewing platforms and a 1600 metre walking track network, with spinifex thatched shade shelters modelled on wiltja, the traditional Anangu shelter. There are toilet facilities, solar powered wayfinder lighting, a performance area and large capacity parking.
From the upper platforms of Talinguru Nyakunytjaku it is possible to see out across open wanari or mulga woodlands to patches of muurmuurpa or desert bloodwood woodland fed by Uluru's rocky catchment. In Uluru's clear light, you can often see landmarks more than 100 kilometres away, including the Musgrave Ranges in South Australia.
The new road to the viewing area provides a wonderful tourist drive through desert oak and mulga forest and takes visitors through new areas of the landscape.
Talinguru Nyakunytjaku will create new business opportunities for Aboriginal people and the tourism industry.
Sunset and sunrise maps and guide | Talinguru Nyakunytjaku guide