Since I arrived in Australia, Casey’s been excited to plan a trip to Uluru. I should actually say take a trip, because I was sequestered to do all the planning. However, having no confidence in my itinerary and estimated costs, Casey then proceeded to duplicate my research, arriving at the same conclusions and within $5 of my estimate. We’re such engineers! We finally made it to the outback! We arrived Friday morning to the hottest and driest place in Australia, where the temperature is often over 40C (104F) and it rains three days a year. As luck would have it, we were among the 1% of tourists lucky enough to see Uluru in the rain.
A brief history lesson here… Uluru is the Aboriginal name for Ayers Rock, the enormous red rock in the middle of Australia. It’s 3.6 km long by 2.4 km wide and 348 m tall (for reference, the Eiffel Tower is 300 m tall). Aboriginals are the Native Australians, similar in some ways to Native Americans in the U.S. From what I gathered, they were very focused on the best ways to interact with people and preserve the environment. When Aboriginals of the Anangu tribe first arrived in this location, it was their tradition for the men to climb Uluru as a rite of passage. It’s a steep, difficult, and dangerous climb. Aboriginals consider climbing the rock a very sacred ritual and prefer that tourists not make the climb. That said, many tourists still choose to climb and there are a few deaths each year of people falling off the steep ascent or having heart attacks en route.
As it was raining when we arrived and the forecast called for more rain, the climb was closed, thus removing the moral dilemma of that otherwise tempting feat. The climb is regularly closed for high temperatures, wind, or rain. Casey and I set out to walk the 9.4 km around the base of the rock. About 2 km into the walk, it started to rain, then pour accompanied by thunder and lightning. I insisted we proceed and complete the trek around the rock. What a journey it was!! We slopped and sludged through orange puddle after orange river after orange swamp. The water all turned a thick Halloween orange color after making contact with the red desert sand. What had once been walking trails were now flooded with standing water. At some points, we hiked through bush to evade the puddles, but others were inescapable. The obvious solution was to remove socks and shoes and splash through the giant puddle!
A brief history lesson here… Uluru is the Aboriginal name for Ayers Rock, the enormous red rock in the middle of Australia. It’s 3.6 km long by 2.4 km wide and 348 m tall (for reference, the Eiffel Tower is 300 m tall). Aboriginals are the Native Australians, similar in some ways to Native Americans in the U.S. From what I gathered, they were very focused on the best ways to interact with people and preserve the environment. When Aboriginals of the Anangu tribe first arrived in this location, it was their tradition for the men to climb Uluru as a rite of passage. It’s a steep, difficult, and dangerous climb. Aboriginals consider climbing the rock a very sacred ritual and prefer that tourists not make the climb. That said, many tourists still choose to climb and there are a few deaths each year of people falling off the steep ascent or having heart attacks en route.
As it was raining when we arrived and the forecast called for more rain, the climb was closed, thus removing the moral dilemma of that otherwise tempting feat. The climb is regularly closed for high temperatures, wind, or rain. Casey and I set out to walk the 9.4 km around the base of the rock. About 2 km into the walk, it started to rain, then pour accompanied by thunder and lightning. I insisted we proceed and complete the trek around the rock. What a journey it was!! We slopped and sludged through orange puddle after orange river after orange swamp. The water all turned a thick Halloween orange color after making contact with the red desert sand. What had once been walking trails were now flooded with standing water. At some points, we hiked through bush to evade the puddles, but others were inescapable. The obvious solution was to remove socks and shoes and splash through the giant puddle!
The rain was intermittent in our walk around the rock. It was dry when we started and dry when we finished with light and heavy rain in between. It was actually an incredible blessing to see the rock in this way because it’s orange color in sunlight turned various shades of grey, blue, and purple in the rain. The waterfalls that cascaded down the sides of the rock were rare and magnificent. In distant pictures, the rock appears as one solid, smooth surface, but I was surprised to discover the many facets of the rock – its grooves, crevices, cracks, fractures, caves, boulders, and textured surface. We viewed the rock at sunset all three nights we were there. Saturday night offered the best view, but still not quite the red glowing light switch moment some experience. Guess I’ll have to go back.
