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Published: April 18th 2007
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As we awoke from our morning call at 6.30am we had a speedy bush breakfast, before heading off to our next camp to enjoy a refreshing shower - what a relief! Then a short journey until we reached the amazing Olgas - one of our highlights, also known as Kata Tjuta in Aboriginal. The Olgas have a huge cultural significance in Aboriginal life, and whilst here we were taught a lot of the history surrounding the Aboriginals. It has been a struggle for their culture to survive in these areas and many unpleasant occurrences have taken place in recent history. To Ananga Kata Tjuta means many heads.
The bright blue sky is a fantastic backdrop for the enormous domes and rich red soil. We embarked on a 3-4 hour Valley of the Winds Desert walk (7.4 kms). We saw fantastic views and rock character formations in the world heritage listed park. The Olgas consists of 36 domes rising approx 500 metres above the surrounding plains. It is difficult to capture in photos the sheer size and multiple colours of this spectacular place. We also saw lots of bright green grasses and lots of brightly coloured scrub birds.
Then we
travelled on to Ayers rock, known as Uluru in Aboriginal - they say that they have been there since Tjukurpa. First we looked around the Cultural Centre and learnt more about the Aboriginal way of life, their history and stories from the Dreamtime, and then saw some of their highly skilled art pieces.
Uluru is the world's largest rock on land rising 348 metres and is 9.4kms in circumference. The Ananga people ask tourists that they respect the land and that they do not climb the rock as they may injure themselves and consequently die and then they will mourn for their loss for a long period of time. These incidents affect their lives as they hold themselves responsible for the safety of the tourists visiting their land. However they do not mind tourists doing the base walk (9.4kms), so most of our group were happy just to participate in the base walk - still some people climbed up the tall rock.
As the rocks have immense spiritual significance there are many places where no photos can be taken. For instance there are areas where only Aboriginal men, women, or senior people can visit where they learn the
secrets of their culture. There are also areas where caves in the rocks have formed where the Aborginals used to give birth. Further sacred sites include where there are two cracks in the rock and where there is a strange adjoining rock piece to the end of one corner of the rock, all which have numerous stories surrounding their existence. The Anangu people have religious duty to keep certain sites sacred and private.
It is also possible to see numerous Aboriginal cave paintings on the rocks where they have told stories to their loved ones. Our guide told us a few of the stories whilst we walked part of the base of the rock. He also drove us around the rock so we could gain an idea of the huge size of this deep red coloured rock. Then we went to a viewpoint to watch the changing colours of Ayers rock at sunset whilst we ate our bush dinner in a semi-circle on our swags! We also saw the more sophisticated tour operators sipping their champagne at the sunset viewpoint - we made do with our goon..
In the evening we went back to our more civilised bush
camp at Yulara resort, but still slept in swags under the stars next to the campfire. We saw more shooting stars and got awoken by the howling of dingos. Then we left camp at 6am to see sunrise over Ayers rock whilst having our breakfast - more dingos could be heard howling at sunrise.
We did a 1 & 1/2 hour walk around the remaining part of the Ayers rock base, seeing sites such as the Mala Walk and Mutijulu waterhole which has dried up at the moment. We managed to see more thorny devils as we made our journey back to Alice Springs. Lunch was interesting as flies swamped our food! In the evening we all met at two outback pubs for drinks and dinner, and then had to take a taxi back to our hostel, as it is not the safest town at night! Strangely we bumped into more people that we had met previously in Perth. The hostel's cat is a little crazy often having fights with the cats next door and running frantically in circles!
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