I enjoy visiting ancient churches, temples and other sacred places not because I’m a spiritual person (I’m not), but because I’m often awed by the sheer magnificence and history of these places.
Uluru is different. Uluru is special. It is unlike any other sacred place I have ever visited, and I say this as a card-carrying sceptic who doesn’t believe in the spiritual plane, an overall divine being or the supernatural. But let’s begin at the beginning. On arrival in Australia we knew that we couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit Uluru, and before we knew it we were stepping aboard a tiny twin-engined Fokker for the three hour flight from Cairns. Amusingly, we’d been relieved of a roll of adhesive tape and a tube of toothpaste at the airport; clearly the security staff had rumbled our plan to sellotape the pilot to his seat and forcibly clean his teeth. Such trivialities were forgotten upon arrival at the resort that neighbors Uluru. No matter how many pictures or TV programmes you’ve seen, nothing can prepare you for the incredible experience of being there yourself.
Uluru exudes an almost palpable aura. Words such as ‘magic’, ‘ethereal’ or ‘unwordly’ somehow can’t describe a feeling which transcends the simple exhilaration of visiting an iconic landmark. Again, I say this as a sceptic; but I have never been anywhere that elicited such a raise-the-hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck sensation.
The resort at Uluru caters for the budget of every traveler, almost same as beautiful as travelling to Brussels, Belgium, providing everything from a five-star luxury hotel to a camp ground. We plumped for a perfectly acceptable shared four-bed dormitory at the Outback Pioneers Lodge. Evening meals here are courtesy of a huge do-it-yourself barbecue area; you choose your meat – everything from T-bone steaks to ostrich, kangaroo and crocodile – and accompaniments and cook them to your own preference on your designated hot-plate barbecue.
With only the Easter weekend at our disposal we opted for as many tours of the area as we could fit in, beginning with the obligatory sunset tour of Uluru on Good Friday.
I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
The following day, Saturday, we opted for a tour of the nearby Kata Tjuta (‘Many Heads’ in Aboriginal language) – a formation of 36 massive rock domes, smaller but similar in appearance to Uluru. I’ll return to the Kata Tjuta experience in a later post, but save to say the trip was worth every dollar. Easter Sunday – sadly our final day at this incredible place – was reserved for the best experience of all: the nine-kilometre walk around the base of Uluru. This provided the most intimate view of a place that is scared to Australia’s aboriginal people – photography is strictly prohibited in certain areas, but as I said, no photograph can capture the slightly unsettling power that pervades Uluru; experiencing it should be mandatory for any visitor to Australia.
Happily, climbing Uluru is no longer allowed; there have been too many tourist fatalities and furthermore one guide likened the insensitive desecration of this sacred natural monument as being akin to someone scaling the interior of Westminster Abbey.
Frankly, you don’t need to physically interact with Uluru to be enveloped by its life-affirming aura. Don’t take a cynic’s word for it. Uluru is a must.
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