Uluru

The Ides of March*
We took a shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport, after 30 minutes of driving around picking up passengers from other hotels we were almost back at where we started. We began to doubt if the driver knew the way to the airport. Fortunately he did and we eventually got there for our flight to Ayers Rock and on to Uluru – or Oooo-la-Rooo as the cabin crew announcer pronounced it (with the emphasis on the last ‘o’ with an inflection to make it a little like a yodel – try it for yourself.) We soon left behind Sydney and the fertile coastal region and began to fly over the desert, it was rather like the pictures that are sent back from Mars, except there is more evidence that rivers do occasionally flow here.

For the majority of the flight the sky had been clear with only the occasional wisps of cloud, as we approached our destination the cloud got thicker and greyer, with rain forecast – this is supposed to be desert, with rainfall of 250mm annually. However the abnormal weather patterns that we (and everyone in the UK) have been experiencing have happened here too. The region experienced a large amount of unseasonal rainfall which appears to have dramatically altered the lifecycle of the desert flora and fauna. So it is much greener than we expected but it also means that the flies, which are always a nuisance here, are in plague proportions and causing a great deal of annoyance – everyone is doing the “Australian wave” or wearing face nets – the place looks like a bee-keepers’ convention is taking place. Another strange fact: the time here is nine-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT.
The whole Ayers Rock resort (which is the only place where there is any accommodation) is all owned by one company which controls prices not only in the hotels but also in the few shops that exist, not so good but the up side is that it means that the number of tourists here at any one time is controlled, no one just ‘drops-by’ as the nearest town is about 450km away and between there and here and there are about eight farms one of them being about a million hectares. Anyway we picked up our car and decided that having come all this way we had to go to Uluru (the rock) immediately. We drove towards it in stunned silence. We had to use a word that is misused and overused (usually by teenage girls from the US) but on this occasion it was so apt – AWESOME! This iconic monolith has textures and colours (even without any sun) that no photograph can ever portray but it is its very presence and stature that makes it, without question, one of the world’s natural wonders. A friend described it as one of the earth’s energy centres and while we don’t go in for that stuff we know exactly what she means. AWESOME.
This one huge piece of rock has had the same effect on us as Easter Island had – we cannot begin to describe the emotions we felt – and still feel having walked around part of it and waited for the sunset (to see the colours change) that never happened but even through the car windscreen covered in rain it still exuded its magnificent presence. After the rain the air was heavy with the scent of the trees and shrubs.
The reason Uluru rises so dramatically from the flat landscape is that it is single rock – made of course grained sandstone hard enough to resist erosion. Its striking orange-red is the result of surface oxidisation – as we went around it whole new vistas opened up of chasms, caves, fluted rock patterns and water flows that have changed its colour. To its Aboriginal owners, the Anagu, Uluru is at the intersection of many “Dreaming Trails” which is a poor translation of the Anagu word ‘Tjukurpa’ which lies at the root of their religious and cultural heritage and is about Law – the Law of caring for each other and the Law of caring for the land that supports our existence. Tjukurpa tells of the relationship between people, plants, animals and the physical features of the land. Many myths, legends and stories exist for the existence of Uluru but none of them can undermine its vast geographical and geological awesome presence.

Tomorrow we are intending to be in the park at 06.30 to watch the sunrise...