Honeymoon Tours Travel

ULURU

Location : NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA

Area of Uluru - KataTjuta National Park : 510 sq ml (1,325 sq km)

Height of Uluru : 1,142 ft (348 m)

Age : 500 million years

Rising from the broad desert plain in the deep centre of Australia. Uluru/Ayers Rock is Australia's most recognisable natural icon.Uluru, or “Ayres Rock" as it was known for much of the last two centuries, is a sacred place. For thousands of years it has been at the center of the life of its Aboriginal owners—Anangu—who still live there today and who share its management with Parks Australia. The rock itself is a sandstone monolith that rises above the flat dry plains of Australia's Northern Territory, almost at the center of the island continent. It is a formation known in geological terms as an inselberg, meaning "Island Mountain." It was pushed up by major earth movements about 500 million years ago, and most of it—like a vast terrestrial iceberg—remains hidden beneath the surrounding sea of sand.

Fine grooves cover the surface of the rock, while caves and crevices are worn into its flanks. Windblown sand causes the rock to erode, although on the rare occasions that it rains here, water cascades down the sides, leaving black veins on an otherwise uniformly red-colored surface. The rock's colors, however, are magnificent, and appear to change as the day goes on—glowing orange at sunrise, rusty in early morning, amber at midday, and a dramatic deep crimson at sunset.

The surrounding countryside is dominated by many groves of mulga trees, blue-gray sandalwood, desert oaks, and bloodwood, a form of eucalyptus. Venomous snakes such as the king brown and western brown live among the dry-adapted vegetation, where they hunt marsupial moles, hopping mice, frogs, and lizards. A large pool on one side of the rock contains water for most of the year; the water snakes here are thought by Anangu to be guardians of the rock and pool.

The first European to see Uluru was William C. Gosse, who explored the areain the early 1870s. He named Uluru “Ayres Rock" after Sir Henry Ayres, who was chief Secretary of South Australia at the time.Today more than half a million people visit the rock each year, using the resort and tourist center at Yulara as a base.Aborigine guides lead short walking tours around the area. Circumnavigating the base can take four hours on foot, and climbing to the summit d is discouraged because it is insensitive to local Aboriginal culture. Climbing is altogether banned when extreme heat, wind or rain make it too dangerous.