Ayers Rock is a steep climb.
Alice Springs sits in the middle of the great Outback desert the Australians call the Land of Never-Never. What appeared to us from the air to be thousands of small lakes turned out to be dry saltwater holes. Because this was the driest year in a while, the rivers also were just dry beds.
Little sign of human habitation existed outside the city.
As I stepped off the plane in February during their summer, the 104-degree heat hit with the force of a furnace. My traveling companions from northern states did considerable complaining about the scorching sun, but coming from Missouri, I adjusted quickly.
I was soon introduced to the Aussie Salute, the constant flipping of hands in front of the face. Soon I was doing the same thing to brush away the flies attempting to get in my nose, eyes and ears. Many of my companions started wearing green netting over their heads.
As we drove from the airport to Alice Springs, our guide pointed out the U.S. satellite tracking station that pumps $70 million into the economy each year. The 1,000 Americans stationed there have good relationships with the locals.
Although about 27,000 people live in Alice Springs, the downtown area seemed quite small. The major business is souvenirs, made by the Aborigines and the Chinese to sell to the 300,000 tourists who drop in each year to visit Ayers Rock.
TOO MUCH SPACE
Outback cattle stations or ranches can be hundreds of thousands of acres in size and hundreds of miles away from anywhere. One of our adventures was a visit to a cattle station - one of the smallest in Australia with only 400,000 acres and 5,000 head of cattle.
Ranchers keep the same number of cattle regardless of the condition of the grass and amount of rainfall. Although the Outback averages 10 inches a year, during many years, only about 3 inches fall. Because cattle are able to go three days without drinking, they can wander about five miles from the wells, which are drilled about 500 feet deep.
Raising cattle is true organic farming; no growth hormones or inoculations are needed because the hot sun kills bacteria.
Major fast-food chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King are the largest buyers. The restaurant-quality beef stays in Australia.
Families use airplanes to cover the hundreds of miles for supplies, sometimes flying 600 miles to get groceries. Special arrangements must be made for medical care and schooling.
We visited the Royal Flying Doctors Service, which treats medical emergencies in the Outback. The airplanes and doctors on call might fly 500 miles to save a life. Before a plane lands, station owners drive up and down the air strips to chase off kangaroos and emus.
A NATURAL WONDER
To get to Ayers Rock from Alice Springs, we drove six hours over land where, if you observed it from high ground, you could see a lot more of nothing. A-bomb tests were conducted there years ago because it was believed nothing could be harmed in the area.
Since 1995, Ayers Rock, the most famous natural landmark and the most visited site in Australia, has been called by its Aboriginal name, Uluru. The world’s largest monolith, it rises 1,100 feet high and is six miles in circumference. It is the tip of a sandstone mountain that extends far below the surface.
This World Heritage site is known for the way it changes color in the light, and tours arrange for visitors to appreciate its spectacular nature at sunrise and sunset, when it glows more intensely red. The orange-red color is caused by the "rusting" of iron in gray rock. After heavy rain, dozens of waterfalls flow down the eroded grooves.
Arrangements are made for visitors to see Ayers Rock at sunrise and sundown to appreciate how it changes color in the light. It takes six hours to climb to its 1100 foot top.
The local Anangu tribe, believed to have lived in the area for 20,000 years, pushed for the site to be returned to them. The caves at the base of the rock contain carvings and paintings sacred to them. The site was returned to the tribe in 1985 after a 10-year battle, and some of the area is now closed to the public. In other areas, photography is not allowed. Aboriginal guides, available for the walking tour around the rock, explain its importance in their legends.
With the temperature at 104 degrees, no climbers were allowed on the rock when we visited. Aboriginals don’t like people climbing it, but they will not actively resist if anyone wants to. If you climb, you must come early in the morning. If the temperature is expected to be under100, you will be permitted to start if you are carrying plenty of water.
On average, one climber a year dies. A long chain set into the rock halfway up helps people work their way up and down. The drops on either side of the climbing route are a hazard, and people have fallen to their deaths. The out-of-condition climbers are at most risk - a larger number of climbers die from heart attacks.
After the drive around Uluru, we toured the culture center, where Aborigine art covers the walls. Photos again were not allowed, but reproductions were available in the shop. When artists die, all pictures of them are removed from the center, and black strips are put wherever their names appeared.
On the evening we watched sundown on the rock, the view was impressive. However, 20 buses were in the parking lot, and about 800 people were picnicking and drinking champagne - quite a contrast to the earlier treatment of this as a revered place.
We also visited nearby Kata Tjuta, with its 36 huge domes, called the "mountain of many heads" by the Aborigines and described by the explorer Ernest Giles as "stoneshapes, like the backs of several monstrous kneeling pink elephants." It is composed of stones from a mountain range that existed millions of years ago.
We took a picturesque 40-minute walk on fist-sized
rocks to a water hole between two cliffs.
