My REAL Birthday

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I considered today to be my real birthday since it's the 25th at home. We were up at 4:30am in order to watch the sun rise behind Uluru (Ayers Rock). It was stunning!!

After that we did a long hike around Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) which was much easier than the King's Canyon walk but equally impressive.

We also drove around Uluru and looked at some Aboriginal rock paintings and heard some Aboriginal stories and learned a bit about what the rock means to them and how they used it. (There are still aboriginals living near the rock but they no longer go there because of all the tourists.)

In the cultural centre there is a book of letters from people all around the world who have taken rocks from Uluru and then mailed them back because they felt guilty. In most of the letters the writer claims that taking rocks from the sacred sites has caused them bad luck which is kind of funny because the aboriginals themselves don't believe any such thing. The people in these letters go on and on about how they respect the sacredness of the rock and so on and so forth but really most of them are just selfishly trying to improve their "luck".

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Photos

Sunrise
Few people realise this, but there are actually two suns in Central Australia.

Sunrise
Sunrise at Uluru as seen from Kata Tjuta.

Kata Tjuta
The Olgas are made up of several of these domes, the group looks completely different from different angles.

Kata Tjuta
Our hike took us around the largest dome which is actually a bit taller than Uluru.

Uluru
An artsy shot :) Not only is Uluru special because of its location in the centre of Australia (surrounded by a lot of nothing) but it is the largest rock monolith in the world. (It is one solid piece of rock as opposed to layers of sedimentary rock like Kata Tjuta.) ROCK MONOLITH would be a good name for a band.

Kata Tjuta
All of it at once!

Comments

[anonymous]

Rock Monolith
Hey Rach!! That IS a spectacular band name!! If your band was named that, you'd have to mix all your sessions down to monaural, though. As opposed to ROCK STEREOLITH. ~Myke

[tom]

stereolith
There is a band called stereolith from sweden! Check em out! www.stereolith.net

[Stereolith]

Stereolith
Yeah! And we kick Ass!