Day 19 Uluru

7 June

Today we spent a lot of time at Uluru.

It is not all that far from Yulara and the entrance to the National Park and you are there before you know it.

I think the first sight of this huge rock once we were in the National Park will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Uluru is probably the greatest Australian icon. For an Australian to see it in real life for the first time is truly awe-inspiring.  I wonder if it has the same effect on other people.

Our first port of call was the cultural centre.  I recommend this to everyone.  You must start here and listen and look carefully at all you will hear and see.  Without doing this you will not understand what Uluru and its people are all about.  I cannot show you any photos because the Anangu, the people who belong to this land, do not like themselves or the centre being photographed.

We then went around to the Mala car-park.  Here we saw something very strange.  Yuluru is of deep spiritual significance to the Anangu.  It is where the souls of their ancestors come after their death.  So they treat it with a deep reverence and would never think of climbing it.  They understand that for many years, overseas visitors and Australians have been coming to Uluru to do just that.

Once the rock and the whole of the national park had been handed back to them,  it would have been reasonable to expect that they would have put a stop to this practice.  Instead, they allowed it to continue but have taken every opportunity to explain to people the significance of the place and ask that people do not climb Uluru.  Regrettably, this request is totally ignored by the rest of the world.  People actually walk past a big sign asking them not to do it on their way to the start of the climb.  What they are doing is  the equivalent of climbing the dome of St Peter's in Rome and then peeing from the top.  I wonder what they would think if somebody did that.

After having some lunch, we drove right around the base of the rock looking for the best spots from which to photograph it at sunrise and sunset.  We were fascinated by the way it changed as we looked at it from different angles.

We are going to Kata Tjuta (place of many heads) tomorrow.  Our original plan was to get up early and  photograph Uluru at sunrise on our way to Kata Tjuta.  Given the difficulty of getting up early this morning, we think it might be more realistic to leave the sunrise and sunset thing until Tuesday and just concentrate on Kata Tjuta tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the photos.

I was just amazed at the way people would read this sign and then set off to climb to the top.

The spinifex country of Uluru

Some rock art at the base of the rock.