Thursday, April 26, 2007

Ayers Rock - Uluru

After some debate, while still in Melbourne about two months ago, we decided we would go to see Ayers Rock, or Uluru - its Aboriginal name.

Before coming to Australia, I was unaware of its existence, and upon learning that it was basically a rock in the middle of the 100+ degree Australian outback, I really pushed back on why on earth we'd want to go. Yet, after talking to people around Melbourne, especially Elliot's cousin Tony, we were constantly told that we just had to see it.

As some backround, the Australian outback is like no other desert you could imagine - it is just endless miles of NOTHING - seriously, nothing. The main issue with Australia, and why the majority of the country is built up around the coast is that the center of the country is utterly unliveable - there are no rivers that run throughout the country - at least none that are in constant stream, or any that could sustain a city around it - so a country the size of the United States has only 22 million people and they all live around the coast.

Uluru - or Ayer's Rock - is literally a monolith - this massive rock in the middle of this massive country and is about the only thing you can see for miles - it comes out of nowhere, and hits you over the head when you see it. Unexplainable, but whatever people were trying to convey to us, they were dead on. I can't explain why, but it was a must see - this is a sacred site for the Aboriginals, and while we were allowed to climb it, we were urged every which way not to. The Aboriginal people liken us climbing on Uluru to going to Notre Dame and climbing on the Alter. We decided we'd respect their wishes!

This picture was taken the first night we got to Uluru, when we went to watch the sunset wash over the rock and make it change from this orangey red you see below to a near grey/black.

The next day we walked the Valley of the Winds through the Olga's (Aboriginal Name Kata Tjuta) - another amazing rock formation nearby. Again we were urged not to walk on the domes themselves but were allowed to walk on the paths in between them. I'm tempted to say that the Olga's were more impressive to me than Ayer's Rock, but I'm not 100% sure.

These were taken on our hike through the Olgas, or the Valley of the Winds Walk:



Finally, we went back at 6am on our last day at Ayers Rock to watch the sun rise over Uluru.


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