Uluru & The Kata Tjuta National Park

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Thu 5 Mar 2015 09:09
As a late Christmas present for the man who has everything, I decided to 'treat' John to an outback camping safari to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kings Canyon. There are obviously tours that involve stays in four star hotels etc, but camping under the stars and eating food cooked on the open fire promised a more real outback experience, and so it was that we were packed and ready to leave at 5am on an already hot morning.
After a long drive, it is about 600km from Alice, we arrived at our campsite in time for lunch. This was our first sight of our accommodation at it looked just fine. A bunch of tents arranged around a campfire and kitchen area.

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Home!

After a lunch, which we had to prepare ourselves as it was a full audience participation tour, we were off to Uluru. The first thing we did was visit the cultural centre and take a walk around the base. Uluru is the largest single rock in the world standing about 348m high and about 3.6km long. That said, despite this, it is like an iceberg in that 2/3 of the rock is below the surface!
The rock is of huge cultural and religious significance to the Pitjantjatjara people who are the custodians of the land on which it sits. The Aborigines are a nomadic bunch and travel around their country according the seasons and available food. When I say country, I mean their part of Australia. The continent of Australia was divided into countries each with their own language and culture, much like Europe, and a tribesman from one country would not be able to speak to or understand the language of another.

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Another famous Aussie icon!

The Aborigines have been living in Australia for over 40,000 years, evidence exists to prove this and there is strongly suggestive evidence that they have been here even longer, up to 60,000 years. This is due in part to the story surrounding Mount Conner or Atila (the aboriginal name). Geologically, the mountain was formed by an ice floe pushing the land into a mass. The Aboriginal story is similar but very simplified. The way they tell it is this. Atila, the ice God , who was one of the creation beings, sat down for a rest, indenting the land as he did so, and creating the mountain as you would if you sat in a pile of sand for example. This is where the suggestion that Aborigines have been around for longer, as being a desert race, unless they had lived through an ice age, which occurs about every 50,000 years or so, why on earth would they have any idea what ice was, never mind have an Ice God?

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Mount Conner or Atila - named after the ice goddess and often mistaken for Uluru.

The creation stories are the basis for the whole Aboriginal culture. This had previously been clumsily translated into the 'Dreamtime' but that is really a bit condescending. The creation beings, such as Atila were all around at this time. They were all huge beings, although they may have resembled human or animal form, and they crossed the country creating the landscape. The landscape is described in 'songlines' which have been passed down from generation to generation ever since. The songlines are a simple way of navigating the country. Each song has a geological explanation, as well as a moral and cultural meaning. If you sing the song as you walk along, you will be guided to various areas and be able to find your way around your country. The tribes moved from place to place throughout the year according to the food available. Once the area had been used for that year, it was left to regenerate until the tribe returned.

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Cave painting, some of which is very old....

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...and some of which is very new, this drawing is about 40-60 years old and shows the Aborigines concerns over tourism depicted by the black plane. Black is used for bad omens.

Each tribe has a very different culture according to where they live and what they need to do to survive. Living in the desert is very hard and survival is paramount so finding food for energy is the main priority. Animals, whose meat forms a large part of the diet, are also scarce so every bit of the animal has to be used including the skin, the fat, literally every part, these guys were the original nose-to-tail eaters! The way the tribes hunted also differed. Boomerangs were not often used, certainly in central Australia and definitely not returning ones, if the boomerang comes back, it can't have hit anything on the way! They had some shaped like the number seven which was used as a hook for hunting and also sometimes for removing a kidney as a punishment - most victims died of blood poisoning! Returning boomerangs were used by some tribes to chase flocks of birds into the air towards the hunters so they could be speared, similar to using beaters in modern day shooting.
When the white settlers arrived, life as the Aborigines knew it was set to change forever. When the settlers found waterholes they were fenced off and the land used to graze cattle and sheep or mined as gold or gem fields depending on the region. When the tribes went on walkabout, the places they used to visit had been fenced off and were no longer available to them. This also meant that their sources of food were being seriously depleted. What the tribesmen could see however was food in the shape of a sheep or cow. When in desperation they stole one of these animals, they were simply shot. It was not against the law to shoot an Aborigine as recently as 1940, in fact it is only since 1960 that they have been recognised as human beings and been entitled to a birth certificate!
The overall effect on the culture has been devastating and there are only about 20,000 full blood Aborigines left in Australia. As the history depends on the passing down of stories from generation to generation, the amount of people who know the stories is now very small and they will eventually die out altogether. It is very sad to think that 60,000 years of survival in the harshest conditions on the planet can be wiped out in less than 250 years.

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Sunset over Uluru - not the most spectacular due to the cloud, but never mind.

The National Park was returned to the native owners in 1985 and is now managed by a joint committee from both cultures in order to try and preserve the way of life and also promote tourism. There are communities living in the area, which we weren't able to visit, and who use the rock in their ceremonies to this day.
The second stop was the Kata Tjuta, meaning 'many heads'. This is a collection of rocks which geologists believe was once a solid piece, most likely larger than Uluru, which has, over about 700 million years eroded to the collection of boulders that exist now.

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The 'many heads' of Kata Tjuta

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Amazing views during the Valley of the Winds walk

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Surprise, surprise, John can't help but get involved lighting the campfire to cook dinner!




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