Uluru – heart of a nation

 

Back to red earth and feathery olive green trees – and a very impressive monolith.

We arrived in rain! How refreshing! And saw the rare occurrence of a ‘waterfall’ trickling blackly down the red rockface.

Next year climbing Uluru will no longer be allowed – as agreed by the council that runs the park: 4 indigenous elder men, 4 indigenous elder women, and 4 non aboriginals. (Note that this council was set up in 1985 & is more gender balanced from the outset than most European organisations today)

Unfortunately the communication of that decision has resulted in almost twice as many people attempting the climb this year than last (360 vs 180 ish). This is despite a lot of information and requests for respect. To the Anangu people who have always lived here it is disrespectful to climb – it is a spiritual centre akin to a cathedral or temple to some of us.

We went to the cultural centre first to learn about the creation Dreamtime stories. In the beginning two snakes, a female python called Kuniya and a viper called Liru, had a big disagreement and a fight which has resulted in a lot of the holes and pits and lines on Uluru.

Geologically Uluru is an arkose sandstone monolith and, like an iceberg, most of the rock is underground. The red is the iron in the rock reacting with the elements. The texture is surprising and beautiful

A big rusty rock….or a fight to the death and evidence of creation.

We went to the art studio which had many paintings and painting going on – a wonderful splashed floor, benches and paints everywhere. There were about 5 locals painting some amazing dot paintings- they take a lot of concentration and patience. We learned what many of the symbols on the artwork mean: animal tracks, meeting places, man, woman, waterhole, dunes etc – as in Kakadu: no photos in the cultural centre.

We are back in Northern Territory area – which goes all the way up to Darwin- and despite being a long way south from there, we feel we are back in the real Australia: the Queensland rainforest was lovely but a bit more familiar as quite like the Caribbean (except with crocodiles!). We are back in the land of perfectly complimentary colours- orange/red and olive green. Because of the rain, flowers and fresh shoots are emerging.

No crocodiles here! But we were lucky enough to see a perentie (goanna monitor lizard) – they can get quite big and they match the orange earth perfectly. This one is about 2 feet long with his tail:

I also added a new bird to my current spotting of over 100 now – this is the lovely crested pigeon:

In the evening we were taken to see the sunset at Uluru

and the amazing art installation, Field of light, by British artist Bruce Munro – thousands of tiny solar-powered lights connected by optic fibre – like a field of glowing flowers.

Tomorrow Kata Tjuta beckons (lumps on right):