Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (Australia)

Uluru

In September of this year, I traveled in Australia. It is springtime there at this time of the year. My Australian journey started from Mountain Uluru. Indigenous people of Australia call Uluru the heart of the continent, and, naturally, Uluru is a sacred place to them. The mountain gives birth to them and the mountain takes them away when they die. The aborigines learned to discern Uluru’s mood. Even birds learned to imitate Uluru, taking turns to sing their songs depending on the time of day and the mountain’s colour. In the morning, when Uluru is waking up, her colour is intensive red; closer to the noon, she is purple; in the day time the mountain is pink, while in the evening she is brown. And this is far from being an exhausting palette of the colour reincarnations of Uluru. The entire mountain is spotted with peculiar voids and hollows, and if you look close enough, you will certainly see a face of some extraterrestrial being, which is frozen in some kind of expectation.

Bird's Eye View of Uluru

Quite often there are strong winds near Uluru, and, interestingly, they come out of nowhere and cease in the same way. By its nature, the mountain’s monolith consists of some layered rock that looks like shale rock and sandstone at the same time. If you strike the mountain with a stick, you may hear that in one place the rock rings like a bell, while in other places the sound is dull as from a monolith. Uluru is full of secrets and mysteries. Scientists believe that deep in the core of the earth, Uluru is connected to one more monolith of Australia – Kata Tjuta, which is no less mysterious. Just like other travelers, paying the tribute of respect to the indigenous people and their beliefs, I abstained from going up Uluru, seizing the opportunity to view the monolith from the bird’s eye view. For several days I was welcoming sunrises and watching sunsets together with Uluru; and it was an unforgettable adventure.

Uluru at Dawn

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park has been enlisted among the objects of the World Heritage of UNESCO since 1987. Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park occupies northern territories of Australia, specifically, 1.326 sq. kilometers of land and water reserves of the wild north. The distance from the city of Darwin to the park is 1.431 kilometers, from Alice Springs – 440 kilometers. The landmark of the entire park is its Uluru Rocks and Kata Tjuta (Mount Olga).

The climate in Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park is rather draughty: the annual rate of precipitation here equals 307.7 millimeters, and the average temperatures in the hottest and coldest months reach correspondingly 45 °C and −5 °C.

Uluru at Sunset

Today the territory of Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park is mostly populated by Anangu aboriginal tribe, many of whom are involved in the operation of the National Park: they work as guides and excursion leaders of tourist groups.

First Europeans arrived on the territory of the modern park Uluru-Kata Tjuta in 1870. As early as in 1872, they prepared and published maps of Uluru-Kata Tjuta region. And on the verge of XIX—XX centuries, European farmers started to move here; eventually, this piece of land had to witness many bloody clashes between Europeans and local tribes, until in 1920 a special reservation for indigenous tribes was formed in one part of the present territory of Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park.

Kata Tjuta

General admission to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park was opened in 1936. A notable event happened in 1976, when the government of Australia granted the ownership rights over the park’s territory to the aborigines inhabiting it. In their turn, the aborigines “leased the park” to the same Australian government for 99 years.

Due to the long-term thorough care over the park’s territory from the two “structures,” as early as in 1987, Uluru-Kata Tjuta was acknowledged by the whole world: UNESCO enlisted Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park among the World Heritage objects. And in the year of 1995, another important event took place – the park received Picasso’s Gold Medal – UNESCO’s highest award, “for preserving the wild nature and culture of Anangu aborigines.”

Bird's Eye View of Kata Tjuta

After numerous scientific researches it was determined that earlier (around 500 million years ago) on the site of the present Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park there was a sea. Its seabed sediments consisting of sand and cobbles turned in the course of time into sandstone. Today, Uluru is recognized to be a part of mountainous range, lying under the ground. Uluru and Kata Tjuta are the places of surfacing of this very mountainous range; that means that Uluru and Kata Tjuta are connected to each other under the ground into one geologic formation. Uluru rocks, and Kata Tjuta rocks as well, are red in colour, which is caused by hematite (ferric oxide) interspersed in the rock.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park’s territory is just one big desert. But the plant life of Uluru-Kata Tjuta is not poor at all; almost all known Central Australian species can be found here, although, in smaller quantities. Some plants of the park are very rare, or even endemic. The trees on the territory of Uluru are represented by different kinds of eucalyptuses, Grevilleas and acacias.

Similar situation is observed in the animal life of Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park. Many animal species here are very rare and even cannot be found anywhere else. Still, according to their old tradition, the aborigines continue to use some of these plants and animals as traditional medicine or for food.

This article uses the material from the web site: http://www.naturelifepark.com