Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park you gotta go here
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site whose main feature is a monolith steep sided sandstone that has a lot of cultural and religious value to the Aboriginal peoples that dwell in its vicinity. Of course tourists will visit the park for many other sights, but the main one is the rock.
The park is located on southern tip of Amadeus Sedimentary basin or what people call the ‘Australian Red Center’. The park is approximately 1431 kilometers south of Darwin and about 440 kilometers south west of Alice Springs by road. It occupies an area measuring 1326 square kilometers.
The Uluru Rock, or more commonly, the Ayers Rock, has a circumference of 9.4 kilometers and features slopes with 80 degrees gradient. The rock is characterized with overhangs, caves, and inlets brought about by sand erosion and chemical degradation.
Due to climatic conditions, the National park is home to perennial grasses, dense groves of acacia and fuchsia and mulga as well as spinifex grass. Of course there will be a low tree here and there, but the park is mostly a shrub land.
If you love the wildlife, you will get plenty of them here. The park is home to 22 native mammals that include marsupial moles, dingoes, kangaroos, some bat species, hopping mice, bilgy and many more. There are also introduced mammal species such as dogs, camels, foxes, cats, etc. The five Australian reptiles as well as 150 species of birds are also well represented.
There are about 36 deaths recorded among those who refused to heed the Aborigines’ warning about the religious significance of the Uluru rock and went ahead and attempted to climb the rock. Whether this was due to the wrath of Aborigine gods who only allow the elders on the rocks or it is due to accidents, no one can tell. What is sure to elicit a lot of anger among the locals is visitors’ nonchalant attitude towards their holy sites. The Uluru was traditionally the dwelling of the Aborigines’ gods. The locals are forever bound to the spiritual and historical aspects of the rock and the park in general.
Whenever you are exploring the park make sure you are mindful of the locals’ religious values. The Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is a phenomenon among the locals and a major tourist attraction. I doubt there is any other place on earth that is riddled with as much superstition or endowed with as much beauty.
by Kennedy Runo on 03/28/2014 in Sightseeing