Uluru

While returning from the Great Barrier Reef on Friday I joked with an Australian traveler about the stereotypes Americans have of Australia…

“Every American who comes to Australia wants the ‘Crocodile Dundee’ experience; sitting around a campfire with a bunch of aborigines playing the didgeridoo.”

It would be great to spend two weeks in Australia hacking my way through the bush with a machete like Mick Dundee did in the outback; having wild late-night rendezvous with the aborigines, covering myself in face paint, and playing the didgeridoo. The real Australia is a bit different… but it can be just as colorful depending on what you make of it.

For me, part of experiencing the ‘Real Australia’ was getting to the Outback. I’ve learned that the term ‘Outback’ is very loosely defined in Australia, and doesn’t necessarily mean the raw, red wilderness; filled with kangaroos, crocs, and other wild Australian beasts. The term ‘Outback’ generally refers to everything outside of Australia’s big cities. Nearly the entire continent is the ‘Outback’, so to speak. In my mind, the premiere Outback experience has always been to see Uluru. Uluru (called ‘Ayers Rock’ by the first Europeans to discover it) is a gigantic red, sandstone monolith; an unmistakable icon of Australia that towers 1000 feet over the Outback and holds profound spiritual significance for the local aboriginal tribe, the Anangu. I budgeted two days to experience Uluru, and I packed as much as possible into the limited time that I had.

I awoke on my morning flight from Cairns just in time for the descent to Ayers Rock. My first sighting of the massive rock was a glimpse out the airplane windows from across the aisle. I quickly relocated so I could get a better view and as we descended I marveled that I was finally seeing Australia’s great natural wonder.

I began my Uluru experience by completing the ‘Base Walk’, a six-mile walk around the perimeter of the rock that introduces visitors to the soaring sandstone surface, as well as aboriginal rock art and sites of spiritual significance. To be perfectly honest, the various caves and indentations in the rock that hold significance to the Anangu don’t mean much to me, but the rock art was fascinating. A few trails branching off from the Base Walk led into small enclaves in which aborigines have left their stories on the rock over the years. Vibrant red, yellow, white, and black pigments covered the insides of the enclaves, and the many ancient paintings that were created on top of each other illustrated generations of life experiences of the local aborigines. It’s impossible to decipher the meaning of all the paintings, although the meaning of certain symbols is still understood; such as concentric circles depicting a waterhole, or the unmistakable icon for a feather or leaf. I hung around at each of the rock art locations until I felt I had fully appreciated what had been left by the ancient inhabitants, and finished my walk around Uluru with a small understanding of the Anangu culture.

My second day at Uluru was packed with outdoor activities. I began the day by riding 15 miles in a van from the Ayers Rock Resort to a sunrise viewing point. The sunrise was nice, but sunsets at Uluru are much better… and I have to interject here and say that a ridiculous number of people pay way too much money to experience an Uluru sunrise. For the cost of all my transportation in the area for two days (amounting to about 200 miles of driving altogether), hundreds of tourists choose instead to ride a giant tour bus to Uluru for just one sunrise… although with their “tour” a small, cold breakfast is included, as well as a metal camping stool to sit on.

Nearby Uluru is another rocky natural wonder: Kata Tjuta. Kata Tjuta is a series of giant rocks, and although none are as big as Uluru, the cluster of them are impressive enough to justify a visit. A 50 mile van ride took me out to the site, and I spent an hour hiking through a red, rocky gorge that was so similar to Southern Utah that I felt I could have been in Zions National Park. I talked with a young family from Wisconsin as I hiked, and learned that they are currently living in Perth while working as the American consul. The family has also lived in Bulgaria and Madagascar doing the same type of work. I couldn’t resist asking about the recent military takeover in the country in which a 30-year-old radio DJ was instated as president. The family told me they were there during the unrest, and that their daughter, Claire, was in the same elementary school class as the president’s young son.

Later in the day I headed to the airport for a helicopter ride over Uluru. Riding in a helicopter is always a bit expensive, but some of my favorite experiences while traveling have been unique ways of seeing famous sites from above (including an incredible helicopter ride over Victoria Falls last year). As the chopper lifted above the airport Uluru instantly came into view, and I loved getting higher and higher in the aircraft and seeing the rock spread out below me. To me the aerial view of the rock is entirely different than seeing it straight on from the ground. It’s obvious from the air that erosion from rainfall has created hundreds of tiny canyons in the rock where the water rushes down to the ground. I can only imagine how spectacular Uluru must be during a giant rainstorm. I would love to see towering waterfalls pour off the edge of the red sandstone. I may never actually see that; but even seeing the erosion from the waterfalls from the air was pretty amazing.

I spent the remainder of my afternoon at the Anangu Cultural Center near Uluru. The cultural center featured various artwork by Anangu people, as well as a description of ‘Tjukurpa’, the Anangu beliefs relating to the creation of the world, as well as a code of ethics and morals to guide everyday life. Tjukurpa stories are centered around legendary animals, such as ‘Kuniya’, the woma python, and ‘Liru’, the poisonous snake. The stories about the animals, or ‘Ancestral Beings’, explain the creation of all things in nature including specific physical characteristics of Uluru. Also, the Ancestral Beings are the primary figures in fables that teach basic morals values to the Anangu. The cultural center features several videos of Anangu ceremonies, and large exhibits describing how the people hunt for food and generally sustain life (I was surprised how much attention was given to describing the method by which Anangu women dig deep pits in the ground to search for honey ants). In an outdoor section of the museum an older Anangu couple demonstrated how to make aboriginal craftwork. Altogether the museum was interesting and a good use of time, but one hour spent there would have been more than enough. Unfortunately I was obligated to spend more than two hours at the museum because of the pick-up times by the bus, but it was still enjoyable, and a good opportunity to try to understand the Anangu culture.

Visiting Uluru has made me much more conscious of the tension between aboriginal people and European settlers. The relationship between aborigines and Australians is strikingly similar to the relationship between Native Americans and European settlers in the United States. Aborigines feel they have been dominated and pushed off of land that is rightfully theirs, and many Australians feel that aborigines are susceptible to alcoholism and crime.. At Uluru the primary area of tension is the issue of whether or not climbing of the rock should be permitted. The Anangu people claim that the rock has such great spiritual significance that climbing it is an act of extreme disrespect. Australians, however, feel that the rock belongs to everyone on the continent, and some even claim that the Anangu didn’t consider the rock to be sacred until Europeans started climbing it. I had a hard time finding a convincing, intellectual argument supporting either opinion, but I’ve gathered a couple of quotes that illustrate the situation well.

First, a quote from a respected Anangu:

“That’s a really important sacred thing that you are climbing… You shouldn’t climb. It’s not the real thing about this place. The real thing is listening to everything… And maybe that makes you a bit sad. But that’s what we have to say. We are obliged by Tjukurpa to say.”

… and now a quote from my Australian helicopter pilot (spoken with a thick Australian accent):

“Sure. Go ahead. Climb it. Spit on it if you want to. I don’t believe in all that spiritual bullsh*t.”

It turned out that strong winds at the summit of the rock caused the park rangers to close the climb for the duration of my stay, so I didn’t have to make the choice whether to climb… although if I could climb the rock I would. I’m a little bit torn because I wouldn’t want thousands of tourists trampling all over historic Mormon pioneer trails that I consider to be sacred, but at the same time, I’m not terribly convinced by the Anangu argument. To sum up my feelings on the matter, the aborigine point of view is about as well-thought as the comment by my helicopter pilot.

Uluru is famous for its changing colors. During the daytime I noticed the rock change from bright red to pale orange, to a burnt brown color, then to a purplish-red color at dusk. I found that the best time to watch the colors change is at sunset. Both days at Uluru I watched from a distance as the sun lowered below the horizon behind me. The rock is incredible at every time of day, but sunsets really do the place justice. To complete my outback experience I had the ‘Outback BBQ’ at the Ayers Rock Resort – a meal including crocodile meat, emu meat, and kangaroo meat, all self-barbecued at an outdoor grill. I stuffed myself with the exotic tasting meats along with corn-on-the-cob, potato salad and coleslaw. It may not have been the ‘Mick Dundee’ Australian experience, but it was the ‘Mike Spendlove’ experience and everything I hoped to experience in the Outback.