Uluru and Kata Tjuta

This isn’t a food post but I really had to write about my recent trip to the centre of Australia. Originally it was prompted by wanting to visit the Field of Lights by the artist Bruce Munro. This is an installation in the desert of 50,000 frosted glass orbs that glow with soft, ever changing colour. It was lovely, but the desert landscape and particularly Uluru were what blew me away completely.

Uluru is a wonderful. It isn’t hard to see why the local Anangu people consider it sacred. It is majestic, beautiful, constantly changing and tranquil. It rises so abruptly from the desert landscape and its surface is marked and varies with holes, gashes, folds, shadows and gorges all of which have an explanation in the indigenous story. The look changes throughout the day with shadows and colour moving and highlighting different aspects.

I have never felt so peaceful as in the quiet of one of the gorges just after sunrise. I don’t understand how people can still climb Uluru against the owners’ wishes, but they do. I don’t understand the need for conquest when it is inspiring just to be there.