Adelaide – The Ghan – Uluru
Martin had exams to finish at Uni-Sydney, so I took
the opportunity to fly to Adelaide and start a four-day adventure to the
Outback.
Adelaide is a lovely city, although
I had just a short visit there. I did
take time to visit their wonderful South Australian Museum so I could learn a
bit about Aboriginal life before I went onward.
The Australian Aboriginal cultures gallery celebrates the cultural
achievements of Australia’s Aboriginal people, the world’s oldest continuous
living culture dating back over 65,000 years.
There are almost 3000 items here, pieces of material culture from Aboriginal communities across Australia. An
incredible display of boomerangs, bark paintings, shields, maps,
early recordings, photographs, field notebooks and some of the only intact bark
canoes still known to be in existence.
Time to get on The
Ghan. The route to the middle of the
outback, Alice Springs, takes me there overnight in a comfy one-person sleeper
cabin, called a “Gold Kangaroom Roomette”.
The view of the outback is incredible.
I booked into Sails in the Desert, a nearby resort
hotel. The front desk was very helpful
in setting up tours to Ayers Rock/Uluru
The evening dinner experience under the stars,
Sounds of Silence, takes place on a site that overlooks the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. One of the special events is a “star talker”
who explains the southern night sky, including the Southern
Cross, and the signs of the zodiac. It’s
pretty clear here, so you can see many planets and galaxies that are generally
not visible to the naked eye.
The next day, I traveled with Anangu Tours to see
Uluru, on a walking tour around its huge base.. Because it is sacred to the aboriginal people,
I opted not to walk to the top of the rock.
That just seemed disrespectful to me.
Although it is certainly the most famous landmark in Australia, there
has always been controversy about ownership.
A long time before Europeans arrived in Australia, the Pitjantjatjara
people called it Uluru. It was not until
1973 that an explorer saw the rock, and named it Ayers Rock after Sir henry
Ayers who was the Chief Secretary of South Australia at the time. In 1992, this famous landmark was referred to
official by BOTH names. But in my
opinion it should be called by the original name: Uluru.
There are many examples of rock art inside the caves
at the base of Uluru.
Uluru itself (the big red rock…) is part of Uluru-Kata
Tjuta National Park. Courtesy of Parks
Australia, here is more information about the geology of this area: I did not know that Uluru tilted 90 degrees
due to plate tectonics, about 400 million years ago.
“Uluru and Kata Tjuta started to form about 550
million years ago. Back then, the
Petermann Ranges to the west of Kata Tjuta were much taller than they are
now. Rainwater flowed down the mountains, eroding sand and rock and dropping it
in big fan shapes on the plains. One fan was mainly water-smoothed rock while
the other was mostly sand.
400 million years ago, the sea disappeared. Rocks folded and
tilted as the earth’s tectonic plates shifted. Kata Tjuta tilted slightly and Uluru tilted 90 degrees. Over the last 300 million years,
the softer rocks eroded away, leaving the spectacular forms of Uluru and Kata Tjuta behind.
These magnificent rock formations are actually a lot bigger than
they appear – like icebergs, most of their mass is below the surface. Uluru and Kata Tjuta are only the tips of huge rock
slabs that continue underground for up to 6 km!”
A more detailed fact sheet about Uluru and Kata Tjuta
National Park can be found here: https://parksaustralia.gov.au/uluru/pub/fs-geology.pdf
Back to Sydney and to help Martin pack for
home. I returned to the Bay Area on June
10, 2001.
