Saturday, May 17, 2014

May 17 -- Driving to Uluru

We headed out of Alice Springs early, both to get to Uluru in time to explore today and to avoid a big parade scheduled for 8:30am. The drive took about 7 hours, including a couple pit stops and a lunch stop. The road was pretty straight and flat -- basically all straight except for two right turns. The countryside was full of scruffy vegetation, but otherwise unremarkable.
The road....

Camel mugging for Jim at a pit stop

With the photo below, this is the scenery in Central Australia


Our lunch hostess
An emu at the station checking US out
At lunch, we stopped at Curtain Springs Cattle Station and met with the wife/daughter-in-law of the current owners. Her father-in-law, Peter Severin, had been instrumental in making Uluru a tourist attraction and had laid the cables that helped people climb the rock. He had bought the cattle station after a previous owner had gone bankrupt, and had built it into more than just cattle. It now houses campgrounds and a low-cost motel. The ranch is 100km by 40km and sustains 3500 head of cattle reliably. They get varying amounts of rain each year, but only one year in seven to ten has rain in all the right seasons to support all the native vegetation. In those years, they could run more cattle, but would have to cull dramatically the rest of the time. There are tremendous challenges to running a ranch, and feral camels are a huge problem. One fence was destroyed by camels and it took 3.5 years and a LOT of money to rebuild it stronger. Her kids are not interested in running the ranch and she is hoping to inspire one of the grandkids, but the oldest is only 8.

Rock in the distance from the bus
Then it was on to 'the rock', which we started seeing glimpses of from the road. Shortly after checking into the hotel, we headed to the facilities there, stopping first at the Cultural Center, which described some of the aboriginal legends about the area. Peter Severin had started  developing the area in 1951 and in 1959, the aborigines were removed from the land so that it could be run as a national park. In 1983, the land was ceded back to the aborigines with a few caveats: it had to be leased back to the state as a park for 99 years, and aborigines would become part of the operating structure. Now about half the governing board is aborigines and people are actively encouraged NOT to climb because of the spiritual significance of the place. Climbing is still not prohibited, but it might happen in the future.



Legend says there is a snake head made of rock

Cave paintings that date back maybe 2000 - 6000 years

Closeup shows how scaly the rock looks.

Jim wearing his fly net hat.

We took a couple short walks along the base, visiting two watering holes and several shallow caves with paintings. Near sunset, we headed to the coach parking spot, where champagne and appetizers were waiting for us. We got to see the sunset light up the rock before heading back to the hotel.

Sunset really lights the rock up

The actual sunset

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