Monday, January 28, 2002
From Alice Springs to Ayers Rock, a memorable trip
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
In the Red Center of the bleak Australian desert, covered with the sharp-edged grey spinifex grass, rises the red colossus of the Ayers Rock, or Uluru, to address it by the traditional name. It is a dramatic feature in the flat surface, like a big red jellybean resting on a table, half-sunk into a soft tablecloth.
Formed 500 million years ago as a conglomerate of rock shards and particles compressed in a solid mass and pushed to the outside of the Earth's skin during the convulsions that formed the surface of this planet, it was subsequently covered by an ocean. It remained buried in debris, until the forming of the continents brought it once more to the surface, the winds of the millennia eroded away the sands, and the rock rose out of the dust. The Anangu Aborigines, who learned to survive in the arid desert, considered it sacred, and the caverns and caves worn into the base of the rock through the actions of the elements became hiding places and temples for the natives. Discoverers of the 19th century, trying to find the secrets of the desert kept perishing in the vast water less wilderness, and only in 1873 a group of explorers on camels led by William Christie Gosse, traversing from Alice Springs 440 kilometers away, came across it. The land around Uluru was leased to cattle stations, until in 1920 it became part of a reserve set aside for the natives, then in 1958 was designated a national park. In 1976 came the Aboriginal Land Rights declaration, and in 1985 the control of the Uluru and Kata Tjuta, a range of red domes 30 kilometers away (known a Mt Olgas) was turned over to the Anangu Aborigines. The park has a World Heritage status, and has been leased back to the federal government for 99 years.
The tourist arrives from Alice Springs, by bus, car or plane, to stay at the one and only Ayers Rock Resort The entire area is leased to this resort organization, and there are several hotels and camping grounds, of which the outstanding one is Sails in the Desert, a rectangle of two-story motel structures around a giant pool, shielded by canvas, reminiscent of the Sydney Opera. The Town Square, a five minute walk away, conveniently provides restaurants, a small supermarket, post office, book and souvenir stores. You meet many Aboriginals, shopping and banking at the ATM.
Visiting Uluru is an experience. Climbers eager to cross the 1,100 ft high rock (you have to be in shape, people get injured and have died in the process, and the governing agency does not encourage climbing) leave at 5 AM, to catch the sunrise. The Anangus do not approve of it for religious reasons, but tourists provide their livelihood...Less adventurous folk can walk around the Rock, in a 10 km journey of interesting scenery. The various caves are posted as sanctuaries, for native men and women separately, with photographers requested to respect the prohibition (we do). Desecrating the caves can incur a $A 5,000 fine or worse.
The traditional sunset trip to Uluru takes the tourist buses to a different viewing area, some kilometers away. People start arriving at 3 PM, setting up folding chairs and tables laden with snacks and champagne, in view of the huge monolith, which, depending on the light, can be black or bright red or a shade in between, and will continue to change colors as the sunlight fades. I counted 40 buses in the lot, with Aussie, Japanese, Italian and American tours, and some German backpackers sitting on the roof of their Volkswagen jitney. We saw Uluru in a most dramatic light, as a fast-moving thunderstorm with lightning passed over the area, lending credibility to the tales of sacred sanctuary.
Uluru is a big part of in the Anangu Aborigines' daily Tjukurpa, a system of beliefs that governs their daily existence. It harks back to ancestor worship, ascribing the rules that govern and have governed their daily existence (Aborigines have a history of 40,000 years in Australia) to the supernatural giant beings in the form o animals who roamed the earth and created the laws. We visited the Uluru-Kata-Tjuta Cultural Centre, in which native guides lecture visitors in the secrets of bush tucker, the hidden food resources that helped the Aboriginals survive for millennia in the arid desert, an the arts of hunting. There is a range to practice boomerang and spear throwing, the latter enhanced with an arm extender called woomera, and a performing group that sings and dances, accompanied by didgeridoo music. In another location, native women squat on the ground in an area set up to resemble a dwelling in the desert, dipping little sticks in paint pots and dotting canvasboards in a manner that we have learned to recognize and admire as Aboriginal art. These workshop-produced paintings, in sizes of postcards and up can be bought in the adjacent Maruku arts shop for modest prices, $A 15 and up, along with boomerangs and other wooden objects carved by tribal craftsmen.
Didgeridoos, the long wooden music tubes chewed hollow by termites (they have been sanitized, no worries) are very popular souvenirs, and some visitors actually master the art of blowing them, which involves vibrating your lips (not by me, mate) while doing circular breathing, simultaneously inhaling and exhaling (dicey). T&V country people know of it, there is didge musician occasionally performing in the Union Square subway station.
About Kata-Tjuta, the short range of high rock domes some 30 km away from Uluru. Also known as the Olgas, after the Duchess of Wurtemberg who was the patroness of an expedition to the Red Center (the huge clay area in the middle of the Australian desert), it has a mile long gorge that is more diverse to walk than the base of Uluru, because of the changing landscape and the red rock vistas that open as you proceed through the terrain. Majestic Mt. Olga is a third higher than Uluru.
This area is endangered species, because of water shortage. Ayers Rock Resort has drilled down 75 feet, to a aquifer that provides mineral-laden water for daily use, with salt content several times that of the ocean. This water is 80,000 years old and non-renewable, geologists claim. When it is gone, in 20 years, water will have to be brought in by pipe, for huge distances, or the Uluru area will die. Book your reservations before it is too late, tourists.
In the Red Center of the bleak Australian desert, covered with the sharp-edged grey spinifex grass, rises the red colossus of the Ayers Rock, or Uluru, to address it by the traditional name. It is a dramatic feature in the flat surface, like a big red jellybean resting on a table, half-sunk into a soft tablecloth.
Formed 500 million years ago as a conglomerate of rock shards and particles compressed in a solid mass and pushed to the outside of the Earth's skin during the convulsions that formed the surface of this planet, it was subsequently covered by an ocean. It remained buried in debris, until the forming of the continents brought it once more to the surface, the winds of the millennia eroded away the sands, and the rock rose out of the dust. The Anangu Aborigines, who learned to survive in the arid desert, considered it sacred, and the caverns and caves worn into the base of the rock through the actions of the elements became hiding places and temples for the natives. Discoverers of the 19th century, trying to find the secrets of the desert kept perishing in the vast water less wilderness, and only in 1873 a group of explorers on camels led by William Christie Gosse, traversing from Alice Springs 440 kilometers away, came across it. The land around Uluru was leased to cattle stations, until in 1920 it became part of a reserve set aside for the natives, then in 1958 was designated a national park. In 1976 came the Aboriginal Land Rights declaration, and in 1985 the control of the Uluru and Kata Tjuta, a range of red domes 30 kilometers away (known a Mt Olgas) was turned over to the Anangu Aborigines. The park has a World Heritage status, and has been leased back to the federal government for 99 years.
The tourist arrives from Alice Springs, by bus, car or plane, to stay at the one and only Ayers Rock Resort The entire area is leased to this resort organization, and there are several hotels and camping grounds, of which the outstanding one is Sails in the Desert, a rectangle of two-story motel structures around a giant pool, shielded by canvas, reminiscent of the Sydney Opera. The Town Square, a five minute walk away, conveniently provides restaurants, a small supermarket, post office, book and souvenir stores. You meet many Aboriginals, shopping and banking at the ATM.
Visiting Uluru is an experience. Climbers eager to cross the 1,100 ft high rock (you have to be in shape, people get injured and have died in the process, and the governing agency does not encourage climbing) leave at 5 AM, to catch the sunrise. The Anangus do not approve of it for religious reasons, but tourists provide their livelihood...Less adventurous folk can walk around the Rock, in a 10 km journey of interesting scenery. The various caves are posted as sanctuaries, for native men and women separately, with photographers requested to respect the prohibition (we do). Desecrating the caves can incur a $A 5,000 fine or worse.
The traditional sunset trip to Uluru takes the tourist buses to a different viewing area, some kilometers away. People start arriving at 3 PM, setting up folding chairs and tables laden with snacks and champagne, in view of the huge monolith, which, depending on the light, can be black or bright red or a shade in between, and will continue to change colors as the sunlight fades. I counted 40 buses in the lot, with Aussie, Japanese, Italian and American tours, and some German backpackers sitting on the roof of their Volkswagen jitney. We saw Uluru in a most dramatic light, as a fast-moving thunderstorm with lightning passed over the area, lending credibility to the tales of sacred sanctuary.
Uluru is a big part of in the Anangu Aborigines' daily Tjukurpa, a system of beliefs that governs their daily existence. It harks back to ancestor worship, ascribing the rules that govern and have governed their daily existence (Aborigines have a history of 40,000 years in Australia) to the supernatural giant beings in the form o animals who roamed the earth and created the laws. We visited the Uluru-Kata-Tjuta Cultural Centre, in which native guides lecture visitors in the secrets of bush tucker, the hidden food resources that helped the Aboriginals survive for millennia in the arid desert, an the arts of hunting. There is a range to practice boomerang and spear throwing, the latter enhanced with an arm extender called woomera, and a performing group that sings and dances, accompanied by didgeridoo music. In another location, native women squat on the ground in an area set up to resemble a dwelling in the desert, dipping little sticks in paint pots and dotting canvasboards in a manner that we have learned to recognize and admire as Aboriginal art. These workshop-produced paintings, in sizes of postcards and up can be bought in the adjacent Maruku arts shop for modest prices, $A 15 and up, along with boomerangs and other wooden objects carved by tribal craftsmen.
Didgeridoos, the long wooden music tubes chewed hollow by termites (they have been sanitized, no worries) are very popular souvenirs, and some visitors actually master the art of blowing them, which involves vibrating your lips (not by me, mate) while doing circular breathing, simultaneously inhaling and exhaling (dicey). T&V country people know of it, there is didge musician occasionally performing in the Union Square subway station.
About Kata-Tjuta, the short range of high rock domes some 30 km away from Uluru. Also known as the Olgas, after the Duchess of Wurtemberg who was the patroness of an expedition to the Red Center (the huge clay area in the middle of the Australian desert), it has a mile long gorge that is more diverse to walk than the base of Uluru, because of the changing landscape and the red rock vistas that open as you proceed through the terrain. Majestic Mt. Olga is a third higher than Uluru.
This area is endangered species, because of water shortage. Ayers Rock Resort has drilled down 75 feet, to a aquifer that provides mineral-laden water for daily use, with salt content several times that of the ocean. This water is 80,000 years old and non-renewable, geologists claim. When it is gone, in 20 years, water will have to be brought in by pipe, for huge distances, or the Uluru area will die. Book your reservations before it is too late, tourists.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:27 PM 
