Australia's Red Centre is the heart of Outback Australia. Uluru, Australia's most famous rock monolith, and the town of Alice Springs are the central areas to set up base.
Uluru used to be better known as Ayers Rock, and is an iconic image of Outback Australia located in the Northern Territory in the very heart of Australia.
“The Rock” is the worlds greatest monolith being 9 km in circumferance and rises an impressive 348 metres. Surrounded by a wide, sandy floodplain covered in spinifex and desert oak it is a trul inspiring sight. The enormous size of the rock is astonishing when you realise that two thirds is below the ground.
Uluru and the surrounding area is an ancient sacred place for the Anangu people. Uluru holds a significant place in the Anangu, traditional owners, creation stories and law. Many of these stories relate to how the ancestral beings formed Uluru and all of its marks and crevices.
At the base of Uluru there are cave paintings and carvings made over many thousands of years by Anangu belonging to the Luritja, Yankuntjatjara and Pitjantjatjara language groups.
In 1985 the entire area was handed back to its indigenous owners and its sights reassumed their traditional names.
A 9 kilometre, 5.6 mile walking track circles the base of Uluru giving visitors the opportunity to see some Aboriginal rock art and also the Mutitjulu Waterhole.
There is a treacherous 1.6 kilometre, 1 mile climb to the top of Uluru however the route follows a sacred religious track. Anangu prefer visitors respect their site by choosing the trails around and near Uluru and not by climbing it.
The walk trails around Uluru reveal Anangu stories and law as you reach each significant site. Your behaviour will determine the depth of your experience at Uluru. The area around the Mala waterhole, for example, bequests silence in respect for the significance of the place. Take the time to fit in with the appropriate behaviours and you will be rewarded with a very soulful experience of Uluru.
The Australian Outback is full of very well-adapted wildlife, although much of it may not be immediately visible to the casual observer. Many animals rest during the heat of the day, such as kangaroos and native dogs, the dingo.
Birdlife is prolific, most often seen at waterholes at dawn and dusk. Huge flocks of budgerigars, cockatoos, corellas and galahs are often sighted. Various species of snakes and lizards bask in the sun in winter, on bare ground or roads, but they are rarely seen during the summer months.
Feral animals such as Camels thrive in central Australia, brought to Australia by the early Afghan drivers. Wild horses known as 'brumbies,' are station horses that have run wild. Feral pigs, foxes, cats and rabbits are also imported animals that degrade the environment, and time and money is spent eradicating them, to help protect fragile rangelands.
In the centre of Australia surrounded by red desert lies Alice Springs, population 22,488, in Arrente country. The original Alice Spring, that the town was named after, is still there. It is a permanent waterhole that clinched the location of an Overland Telegraph Station and was named after the wife of the Postmaster General of South Australia. Although Alice may have once been a remote outpost, the second biggest town in the Territory now has all the conveniences of a modern city.
The township was originally called Stuart but officially became Alice Springs in 1933.
From the first residents in the 1870s until the completion of a railway service between Adelaide and Alice the town grew very little and supplies were brought in by camel train. The railway was completed in 1929 and the service became known as The Ghan after the Afghan camel drivers. A surfaced road link was not completed until the 1940s.
Since the 1970s a huge increase in tourism has brought fast growth and Alice Springs is now a lively city. Although the population is around 22 000, 400 000 travellers visit every year.
Alice can be used as a base to travel to the Simpson Desert, MacDonnell Ranges, Uluru Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta The Olgas.
The Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre, Jukurrpa Artists and Warumpi Arts are all Aboriginal owned and can be found in the centre of Alice Springs.
CAAMA radio is a station dedicated to providing a quality service to Aboriginal people has quickly become popular with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people due to its different and appealing approach. An art and souvenir retail outlet, CAAMA Shop, owned by Aboriginal community of Alice Springs can be found just out of Alice Springs town centre.
Kata Tjuta, sometimes written Kata Tjuta{Kata Joota}, and also known as Mount Olga (or colloquially as The Olgas), are a group of large domed rock formations located about 365 km southwest of Alice Springs, in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. Uluru, 25 km to the east and Kata Tjuta form the two major landmarks within the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. The 36 domes, covering an area of 21.68 km², are composed of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock consisting of cobbles and boulders of varying rock types including granite and basalt, cemented by a matrix of sandstone. The highest point, Mount Olga, is 1066 m above sea level, or approximately 546 m above the surrounding plain (203 m higher than Uluru). Kata Tjuta is located at the eastern end of the Docker River Road.
The Pitjantjajara name Kata Tjuta means 'many heads'. The site is as sacred to the Indigenous people as Uluru.
The alternative name, The Olgas, comes from the tallest peak, Mt Olga. At the behest of Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, Mt Olga was named in 1872 by Ernest Giles, in honour of Queen Olga of Württemberg. She and her husband King Karl had marked their 25th wedding anniversary the previous year by, amongst other things, naming Mueller a Freiherr (baron), making him Ferdinand von Mueller; this was his way of repaying the compliment.
On 15 December 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted that allowed official names consisting of both the traditional Aboriginal name and the English name. As a result, Mount Olga was renamed Mount Olga / Kata Tjuta. On 6 November 2002, following a request from the regional Tourism Association, the order of the dual names were officially reversed to Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga.
Reference: Wikipedia 2009