Kata Juta and Uluru

I leave for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park* before I can start worrying about suitcase-carrying bugs.

While the oldest Australian human remains date back 40,000 years, archaeologists have identified charcoal cave drawings that may be twice as old.  Aborigine people, who call themselves  Anangu (especially in Central AU), may have come from Southeast Asia or New Guinea, perhaps at a time when the seas covered less of the land mass than they do now.  Whatever their origins, their social laws and tribal culture are ancient, and imbue the stories of all I see.  

The Anangu believe they are guardians of the land; the Pitjantjatjara  and Yankunytjatjara tribes (go ahead, try to say it, you know you want to) are the custodians of the land that encompasses Kata Tjuta and Uluru. Every feature of these rocks is part of Anangu myth.  The native population believes ancestral beings created the landscape as they moved across the country, and some of their spirit lingers at each place they passed. 

above- Kata Tjuta

Kata Tjuta’s domes of feldspar and granite ‘cemented’ together in sandstone, rise up from the flat red land to reach almost 1,800 feet. Over a period of 300 million years, mountains eroded and the remaining layers compressed to create the ‘second generation’ rocks of Kata Juta, and Uluru.

Clouds are moving in.  I don’t think those are ancestral beings, I think we’re going to get some early rain.  The rainy season officially doesn’t begin for a few months, but there’s already some lacy greenery scattered across the desert floor.  This is a concern here, because if vegetation comes in too early, it will have too long in the dry season and the danger of bush fires increases.  In the hope of getting to Uluru before the rain, I leave Kata Juta behind.

Uluru (Ayers Rock)

Uluru is one of the most photographed sites in Australia, and one of the largest monoliths* in the world.  Like Kata Juta, it seems to burst from the red desert, a remarkable contrast to the land around it. Geologists estimate the rock under ground is between three-to-ten times the size of the rock above ground.  Uluru is 1,100 feet of slick rock—that could mean as much as 2 miles of Uluru is underground.

For better images than the rains allowed, please visit http://www.terragalleria.com/pacific/australia/ayers-rock/.

* What’s in a name?  

I use the Aborigine names in my blog and those are the names that my guide used, but for years the European names were more prominent: Uluru was known as Ayers Rock;  Kata Juta was 'The Olgas'.   I also learned on my return home that the correct name for the remains of a rock like Uluru is inselberg.

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