Longitude 131°

At dawn the canvas blinds of the pavilions at Longitude 131° go up and the first thing in view, across a plain of spinifex and desert oak, is Uluru. The lodge sits on a sand dune outside Yulara, the resort township beside Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in Australia's Northern Territory, and it was built so that nothing stands between the beds and the rock.

History

The lodge opened in 2002 under Voyages, the company that then ran the Ayers Rock Resort at Yulara. A bushfire in 2003 swept the dune and closed it for repairs, and it reopened the following year. In 2013 Baillie Lodges, the company founded by James and Hayley Baillie, bought Longitude 131° and added it to a group that already held Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island and Capella Lodge on Lord Howe Island. A major refurbishment followed in 2017, bringing a new spa, a larger Dune House and a two-bedroom Dune Pavilion. KSL Capital Partners took a controlling stake in Baillie Lodges in 2019, and the group has since added Huka Lodge in New Zealand and other properties.

Architecture and design

The original scheme was by the Sydney architect Philip Cox, with tents raised on steel frames above the dune so that the ground beneath was left undisturbed. The 2017 works were designed by Max Pritchard Gunner Architects, who had also designed Southern Ocean Lodge. Interiors mix Australian timber and leather with commissioned works by Anangu artists from the region, chosen so that the lodge reads as desert rather than safari. Dune House, the central building, holds the lounge, bar and dining room under a tented roof and opens onto a deck and a pool facing the rock.

Rooms and suites

There are 15 tented pavilions and one larger Dune Pavilion, each with a king bed placed to face Uluru, a private balcony with a daybed for sleeping out, and, in the Dune Pavilion, a plunge pool. Each pavilion is named after an explorer or pioneer of the central Australian desert. Walls of canvas and glass keep the view clear; the pavilions are air conditioned against the summer heat, which often passes 40 degrees. Rates are all-inclusive, covering meals, an open bar, a daily programme of guided excursions into the park and transfers from Ayers Rock Airport.

Dining

Meals in Dune House are built around Australian produce and native ingredients such as wattleseed, lemon myrtle and bush tomato. Table 131 is the lodge's outdoor dinner, taken on the dune under the desert sky after sunset drinks, with the night often ending in an astronomy talk from a guide. The Dune Top platform serves sunset drinks with Uluru and Kata Tjuta both in view.

Wellness

Spa Kinara, added in 2017, has treatment rooms built into the dune and offers treatments drawing on desert botanicals. There is a small pool at Dune House.

Weddings and events

The lodge does host small weddings and private celebrations, with ceremonies at dawn or dusk on the dune facing Uluru and dinner at Table 131, but with 16 pavilions it suits elopements and intimate parties rather than large receptions. It is occasionally taken over in full by one party. There are no meeting rooms.

Location

Yulara is about 20 minutes by road from Ayers Rock Airport, which has direct flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Cairns. Uluru itself is a short drive, and the Kata Tjuta domes about 50 kilometres west. Guided walks around the base of the rock, the Mutitjulu waterhole, Walpa Gorge at Kata Tjuta and the Field of Light installation by Bruce Munro, opened in 2016, are the standard excursions. For a luxury hotel in Yulara the setting is unusual: the lodge sits outside the township on its own dune, just beyond the national park boundary, and park passes are arranged for guests on arrival.