Uluru Part 2

Lloyd cooking pancakes by Uluru

After watching the sunrise we thought it would be nice to have breakfast right by the rock and so armed with our little gas cooker Lloyd made his wonderful pancakes and we brewed some coffee and enjoyed the view of Uluru.
We then joined the Ranger for the Mala walk which was really informative about the local history and visited the cultural centre.
The Anangu people are the traditional inhabitants and the area around Uluru which was taken from them in 1958 to be a National Park.The rock has great cultural significance to the Anangu and they request that visitors do not climb partly due to the path crossing a sacred Dreamtime track and their sense of responsibility for the safety of visitors.
 In 1985 it was returned  back to them on condition that the Anangu people would lease it back to the National Parks for 99 years and it would be jointly managed.Access to  climbing the rock was supposed to be stopped then but the government broke its promise and it is hoped that in 2019 climbing will cease .

The striking thing for us about the rock is that it has many nooks and crannies, its not flat at all around the sides.The above photo tells a story about nearby tribe who wanted to join in on a ceremony and were turned away so later came back and killed several men. These are the men who died. They were in a recess like an open cave.

Uluru is 348mtrs high and goes underground for 6kms. it is essentially an inselberg or 'island mountain' and is often called a monolith.Its rock is a type of sandstone and what is unusual is its lack of scree on the slopes or any soil so it has not eroded like other rocks.