Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park consists of Uluru (the Anangu name for Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (or the Olgas). The first European to set eyes on the famous rock was the explorer Ernest Giles, in 1872, but it was another explorer, William Gosse - and his guides - who completed the first recorded ascent a year later, naming it Ayers Rock after a South Australian politician. With white settlement of the Centre came relocation of the Anangu from their traditional lands around Uluru, merely to make way for livestock to overgraze the sensitive desert environment. Returned to the Anangu in 1985, the park continued to be a favorite tourism site, and was leased back to the Australian Nature Conservation Agency.

Uluru, Kata Tjuta and the surrounding desert are bound to a living culture whose holistic cosmology sees the People, the Land and the Law as comprising their central tenet - known as the Tjukurpa or "Dreamtime". The Anangu are thought to have occupied this area for around 20,000 years and Uluru is the name of a waterhole near the summit. While Uluru is a key intersection along many "dreaming trails" (or Songlines, as Bruce Chatwin's excellent book of that title described them) - principally those of the Mala (hare wallaby), Liru (poisonous snake), and Kuniya (python) - it is not the holy shrine some may imagine; a muddy waterhole 200 miles away may be just as significant.

The reason Uluru rises so dramatically fron the surrounding land is because it is a monolith, that is, a single piece of rock. In places, the surface of the hard sandstone rock has peeled or worn away, producing bizarre features and many caves. The striking orangy-red hue, enhanced by the rising and setting sun, is the result of oxidation ("rusting") of iron in the normally grey rock.

Many visitors climb to the summit, but the Anangu request people not to, as the rock is only supposed to be climbed by Mala men. Please respect their wishes; besides, the view is much better around the rock, especially on your bike!

©Erwin Bakx 1996