DAY 8 : MT EBENEZER TO ULURU

5 April 2010. About halfway between Mt Ebenezer and Uluru we came over a hill and saw Mt Connor in the distance. Many people, in their excitement, mistake it for Uluru but this mountain, also a monolith, is three times its size!

At Yulara, Uluru township, we parked the van in the camping/caravan site and drove out to The Rock. In places the road comes very close and it is moving and awe inspiring to be in its presence. It is easy to understand why it is such a sacred place to the Aboriginals.

Uluru is a single rock, or monolith, 348 metres high and 9.4 kms in circumference. Only one third of the rock appears above ground. It was formed maybe 900 million years ago when sediment settled in a huge crevice on the bottom of the sea. It is made of sandstone with a high content of feldspar which is much harder than granite. When the sea receded, the surrounding land masses eroded away leaving The Rock exposed on a flat plain.

Although it looks smooth from a distance the surface has a flaky appearance. Its true colour is grey, as you see in the caves, but the outside surface is weathered by water and oxygen that turns the iron content a rusty colour.

I was surprised to see the gaping holes in its surface. In the picture above you can see a large boulder next to the road which has fallen from one of the holes.

Our first walk was to Mutitjulu Waterhole ("Moot-it-joo-loo") at the base of Uluru. On the walk we come upon a cave and more fallen boulders. In the distance you can see ripples on the rock where water runs down into the waterhole we are heading towards.

Inside the cave were lots of aboriginal drawings - many of them are signposts to other aboriginals telling them, for instance, that there is water nearby....

Although you cannot see it in this photograph there was water trickling down the rock from rain the previous day.

In the evening we took photos of Uluru at sunset - the pic below, with the evening shadows, shows the rich red colour as the setting sun catches the rock and the next pic shows the colour in daylight.