Uluru

For anyone who's already been, Uluru (once called Ayer's Rock), you know that this is an amazing place. I have forever been curious and looking at it in person for the first time was breathtaking. Partly because of decades of anticipation and partly from being able to absorb in real time and with reverence the real scale of it. Long ago the picture in my head was of a flat topped mountain perhaps the size of one of our larger Rocky Mountain peaks. Although you can actually walk around the Rock on flat ground in less than a day, as many people do, it is nonetheless larger than life! At 40 degrees C, we did not hike around but idled around in the comfort of a small van, stopping at numerous spots to observe up close the character of the Rock and hear histories of the Aboriginal peoples and their relationship with Uluru.

Uluru at sunrise. You can't come here and not take this shot!

Cave writings on Uluru. Disrespectfully, vandals have painted their initials over some of the adjoining writings.

Uluru is depositional sandstone laid down some 400 - 500 million years ago. At some point it tipped 90 degrees to it's current orientation, so the geological history is laid out from one end to the other with approximately 50 million years of geological time between one end and the other.

Kata Tjuta, a series of about 30 peaks located about 50 km from Uluru as the magpie flies.

Typical boulders from Kata Tjuta showing the conglomeritic make-up of the mountain.

Uluru, Kata Tjuta (the other conglomeritic series of dominant outcrop) and a large surrounding area were returned to the Anangu Aboriginals on October 26, 1985 and they now manage and protect the area. Having visited Aboriginal museums and exhibits in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, it is enlightening to see that the treatment of Aboriginals in Australia is very similar to the evolution of treatment us North Americans have given our First Nations, including residential schools and herding of cultures into reserves. It is heartening to see this history being reconfigured and reconciled in Australia. I feel as Canadians we are lower down on the positive curve of these efforts and hope that we can catch up.