(Ayers Rock & The Olgas)
Northern Territory
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(Ayers Rock & The Olgas) Northern Territory |
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Uluru is Australia's most well known geographic feature.
Also known as Ayers Rock, Uluru rises 300 metres from the desert floor. And with a perimeter of 8km, it is indeed imposing.
Being composed of feldspar sandstone causes it to radiate varying colours and hues. The photo above was taken at dawn - which is a favourite time to view it.
Uluru is not the world's largest monolith, in fact it is not a monolith at all - being part of a sandstone formation that includes Kata Tjuta.
The world's largest monolith is Mount Augustus in Western Australia which is 2½ times larger than Uluru.
About 30km to the west of Uluru is Kata Tjuta - aboriginal for "many heads".
Kata Tjuta, also known as The Olgas, covers an area of 3,500 hectares with Mount Olga rising to a height of 500 metres.
Located 450km south-west of Alice Springs, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park covers an area of over 130,000 hectares. This superb web site provides a most informative description of the traditional land owners - the Anangu people - their culture and beliefs.
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park was inscribed on the World Heritage List for its outstanding universal natural values (1987) and outstanding universal cultural values (1994).
Uluru is pronounced oo-loo-roo. Kata Tjuta is pronounced cat-a t-joo-ta.
The above photos were taken in 1973, and were only recently converted from slides to digital images.