Continuing with my surprise about the Outback, Uluru is not a huge rock rising from an arid red desert.  Take a look!

This desert hasn’t seen rain in three months.  What?  There are plants, trees, shrubs, and animals all through here.  This is not the desert I know!

But before we see The Rock again we have to take the ride from Alice to the one and only resort there.  Because our driver has to stop every two hours for half an hour we got to see “road trains,” semis pulling three to four trailers, camels, used by Afghans to build the telegraph lines, and more kangaroos.

This first little Joey was about as big as one of our cats.  The little grey one about three times his size.  And the baby camels – – we’ll what can you say about camels?

Uluru is the sacred mountain to the aboriginals.  There are secret stories about it passed down from father to son and mother to daughter.  Men and women have defined roles which they refer to as men’s business and women’s business. This business happens from birth to tribal initiation and on from there, giving each generation the information which helps them survive.  The stories we were allowed to hear about Uluru basically told how the scars on the rock got there in an epic battle between two forces in opposing tribes.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the side of the rock which had these scars.

There is another rock formation out here called Kata Tjuta.  It is several huge boulders tumbled together.  Again, this formation engenders stories, but the place I liked was the family cave.  Here the family sat around telling stories and drawing pictures about their lives which were given to provide information for the youngsters on how to survive.  For example, the line of concentric circles (a big part of aboriginal art) tells how to find water sources.  The insect with sections is called a witchity grub and the kids learn early how to find this delicacy in the roots of the desert trees.

This is a sacred waterfall at Kata Tjuta but word on the block is the elders will be coming around to do a rain ceremony any day now.  The aborigines bought back this land a few years ago amid great controversy.  Many thought the money spent would have been better used to help those displaced during the years of control by interfering Europeans.  Do I have to cue the music again?  Sigh.

But…….

Watching the sun rise over Uluru is probably the most spiritual experience we will have on this part of the trip and I embrace it with a full heart.