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| Uluru |
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| Uluru |
Also known by their European names Ayer's Rock and The Olga's, these rock formations in "the outback" are just another of Australia's many natural wonders. Uluru is a monolith of red rock. Many of the curious tourists actually climb to the top. The summit is 900 feet above sea level, the climb is about two hours round trip. The red sandstone makes the trail very slippery. There are emergency call boxes at the summit and the base, but I was told it can take 3 hours for a rescue helicopter to reach an injured person.
The aborigine's prefer that Uluru is neither climbed upon nor photographed. Uluru is part of the aborigine creation story and as such view it as sacred. They also feel a sense of responsibility when someone is injured while climbing. I did not climb the rock, instead we hiked all the way around. This took about 4 hours. There are not many visitors here and the trails were nearly deserted. We did meet up with several aborigines that lived nearby.
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| Uluru, close-up |
One day we participated in an aborigine led walk through the brush. Maureen and Wallace, our guides, demonstrated many aspects of aborigine life including hunting, making tools and preparing wax from the spinifex grass. The guides only spoke in their local language, Ptintjara, and were translated by the ranger that accompanied us. This walk was very informative and I can highly recommend it. And it's free!
We stayed at the Ayer's Rock camp. This consisted of very modern two person cabins with refrigerator, tea kettle and TV. The bathhouse is reached by going outdoors. There is a communal kitchen including a huge outdoor grill. There is a canopied eating area with bar and even a take-away window for those who don't want to cook. We did both, it was fun and very reasonably priced. We rented a small car at the airport which allowed us to come and go as we pleased rather than waiting on the bus.
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| Australian Night Sky |
One evening we went on an outing with the astronomer from the Ayer's Rock observatory. It is very dark here because of the absence of any nearby cities. Many interesting stellar objects could be viewed by naked eye or with small binoculars. We observed our closest neighbor, Alpha Centauri a binary star system, a star cluster called The Jewel Case, the constellation known as The Southern Cross, The Coal Sack nebula, Rigel Kentaurus globular cluster and the smaller Magellanic Cloud. The dark sky made the Milky Way simply outstanding!
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| Kata Tjuta |
The drive between Uluru and Kata Tjuta is about 50 kilometers. Kata Tjuta is a group of 36 boulders that tower several stories high, they may have once been one giant rock even larger than Uluru. There are hiking trails throughout the site. Some portions of the trails are very rocky, so watch your step. We did not see much animal life around Kata Tjuta (or Uluru for that matter) which is quite a contrast to Queensland. Although, the rangers say there are 150 variety of birds and over 20 types of mammals.