Home in Two Places: Friday, September 26th through Sunday, September 28th, 2025 - Two Land Based 'Icebergs'

Petermann Ranges

There are two 'inselbergs' in Central Australia that are only 36 miles apart. The are both formed of sedimentary rock that came from the same mountain range which you can see in the photo above - the Petermann Ranges. It is hard to imagine, but 550 million years ago these mountains were the height of the Himalayas. Considering they are around 175 miles away, on the border of Western Australia and The Northern Territory, the fact that we can even see them across that distance reveals that they are still a consequential structure.

View of Kata Tjuta's Western End

The first of these inselbergs* which we visited, is Kata Tjuta. Like Kings Canyon, it consists of many rock domes, but these are on a much grander scale. The highest dome, Mount Olga is 1,791 feet above the surrounding plain. Along with the other 35 domes the rock covers over eight square miles. The Aboriginal name Kata Tjuta, actually means 'many heads', which seems like a great description.

It is believed the rock continues underground, to a depth of up to four miles. The domes are made up of quite a chunky conglomerate rock - pebbles and boulders cemented together with mud and sand. These eroded from the distant Petermann Range, and were carried by rivers to be deposited here in an inland sea, the Amadeus Basin Sea, about 500 million years ago. As if that's not enough, there was additional mountain building that turned the sediments 15 to 20 degrees on their side, between 450 - 300 million years ago. You'll be pleased to know that all has been geologically quiet since then! I don't know about you, but I found all of these statistics quite impressive!

*an isolated hill or mountain rising abruptly from a plain

A Million Dollars of Taxpayer Money

We were headed for a walk into Walpa Gorge, between two of the domes. It was our practice to stop at a toilet before setting out, and for this I am grateful to the citizens of Australia who spent about a million dollars to provide this very nice toilet in such a remote place! Generally speaking the toilets in the parks were pretty good, all things considered. If they had seat, paper, soap and water, they were top class. Some were flush toilets, some pit. Most were pretty clean and it was unusual for them to be stinky. This one had water, but was a waste pit system - no flushing! It did have toilet paper, non-potable water and soap.

Massive Domes

The domes were quite massive. They also had many holes in them, I presumed due to larger chunks of the conglomerate being eroded away by wind and water and rapid temperature changes.

Boulders of Conglomerate Which Have Fallen

Because there is so little rainfall here, it is hard to imagine that the weathering from wind alone would produce such large boulders. However, here is the evidence that, indeed, big chunks of rock do fall from the otherwise smooth rock face. Temperatures between night and day, especially in winter, so the rapid heating and cooling can cause fracturing, especially if night time temperatures go below freezing.

Here are the Holes!

I wouldn't want to be standing there when the the boulders come tumbling down!

Bringing One Down to Size!

This was a completely different scale from Kings Canyon. I felt really dwarfed walking in the 'valley' between the two huge domes on either side of us. In the morning sun, the contrast between light and dark was extreme.

End of the Path

There was standing water toward the end of the path, as the gorge narrowed. The vegetation in the gap is called spearwood vine, used by the Aboriginal people to make spears. It suggests there is water further ahead, too.

A site like this would be good for the Anangu to use as a ritual space - it has water and shade. Kata Tjuta is a men's sacred site, where traditional Law is still learned and passed on from one generation to the next today. They camp a short distance away from the area and walk in quietly. Women will come here to gather food and water, and visitors like me, are likewise asked to approach this space with respect for the traditions.

Education for children living in small indigenous communities in this region presents challenges. Not only is it important for them to receive traditional knowledge at places like this, but also western knowledge. Our guide, Glen, shared that many children who are sent away from their families for Western education to Alice Springs, or even Adelaide, face great emotional and spiritual challenges. For a child who's always been used to family next door in a small community, being in a big town, or big city where there are many strangers around who don't speak your language often results in homesickness and they are sent back to their communities where access to quality western education is not available. There is a need for services to allow children to stay in their communities and learn both cultures.

A Last Glimpse

It had been a lovely walk. But now our attention turned to other things.

Field of Lights by Bruce Munro, with Drone Show in the Distance

The town created here for tourists, Yalara, offers a number of events for visitors to enjoy in the evenings, when the natural beauty disappears into the darkness. As a result of rain being very infrequent, (only 29 days of the year), the venues are under the open sky. The offerings include dining under the stars, and other events that offer canapes and bubbly. One of the most notable is called Wintjiru Wiri, which is a substantial drone show developed with the guidance of the Anangu Working Group - the traditional owners. It tells a creation story, the Mala Story. We were asked not to photograph or record the show, but in the photo above, you can see some of the drones in the distant sky as they dramatized the story. Along with music and narration, it was quite powerful. I will tell you more about the Mala when we visit some of the physical features of Uluru, which provide present day validation of the story's origins.

There was also a light installation by Bruce Munro, the same artist who designed the columns of light at Kings Canyon.

Field of Lights, by Bruce Munro, with part of the Southern Cross in the Sky

Bruce Munro installation had more visual cohesion than the one I had seen at Kings Canyon, but I was surprised that the lights were all joined together by white electrical cord. This distracted my eye from the vibrance of the lights, so I share this cell phone photo above, so you can see (faintly) three stars of the Southern Cross. The two bright stars above it (arranged vertically) are the 'Pointers'. The 'Cross' is the triangular ones below it.

I really think these developed areas are missing an opportunity by not offering dark sky spaces where the brilliance of the Milky Way can be appreciated. (At least on the nights where there is no moon!)

Uluru at Sunrise

The Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is open to the people of the world through the generous spirit of the traditional owners, the Anangu.

It was only after adventurers like Ernest Gill had come into this area in the late 1800's that there was contact with Europeans in this part of the world. The land was seen as 'worthless' from the European, economic point of view and in the 1920's there was talk of just creating a large 'reservation' for the indigenous populations here - the Petermann Reserve.

By the 1930's, however, the 'whitefella' realized that the area could offer value as grazing land, especially for cattle, so a lot of it was taken back. As more European people came in, trading with the Anangu began - both for artifacts, and for their help hunting dingoes, which were troublesome for cattle stations. Unfortunately for the Anangu, their payment was flour, sugar, jam, tobacco and alcohol - substances that their bodies had never experienced in the 35,000 years they'd been here.

To say things went downhill from here for the Indigenous people is an understatement!

One Rock - Many Features

As the years went by, the notion of a national park had developed, and by1958 both Ayers Rock (Uluru) and The Olgas (Kata Tjuta) were officially designated as a National Park. The Anangu who lived here were encouraged to go elsewhere. In my little town of Fernandina Beach, people have been terribly put out by the temporary closure of two of our three major grocery stores, resulting in the task of having to travel six to eight extra miles to shop for groceries. Now, think about it - being told you have to go live in a different area, with different animals and vegetation, would be like us being told to go and shop at a entirely foreign grocery store where the labels are in different languages, the food unrecognizable, and requires preparation you're unfamiliar with, AND some of the food might actually kill you! The knowledge of how to live on their part of the land would not transfer to these new places. This was a hard 'ask'!

By the 1960's many were working on cattle stations. Some of the owners learned the language, treated them well, but others did not. In 1966 at a station called Wave Creek, a new owner refused to pay anything but rations. A quiet-spoken man, Vincent Lingiari, a Gurindgji man, decided to walk off, and with him went 200 other workers. It's called the Wave Hill Walk Off, the protest lasted eight years, and it was through the actions of this one man, that 10 years later, in 1976, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act was passed, enabling First Nations peoples to claim title if they could prove traditional ties to the land. It has resulted in up to almost half of the land in the Northern Territory being returned to Aboriginal peoples.

Here's a link to a famous Australian song about Vincent. I've posted the words at the end of this post for you**

From Little Things Big Things Grow

Teaching Cave - Kulpi Nyiinkaku

It took another ten years for the Anangu people to establish their legitimate claim to this area. It was complicated by the appeal of both Kata Tjuta and Uluru to tourists, and the desire on the part of the Australian Government to keep these unique places as a National Park. Happily this complexity was addressed by two actions on October 26th, 1985. First, the Angangu were presented the title deeds to their land and five minutes later, they signed an agreement to lease their land back to the Australian Government for 99 years. A Board of Management was put in place comprised of 12 people - four 'white fellas' and eight Anangu elders.

I can only imagine what that must have felt like - finally getting legal title to the land that your people have inhabited for millennia, but then 'giving' it back to a system which has violated many promises in the past. Although one could cynically argue it was to access economic benefits from the area, but the way it has been cared for suggests the underlying motive was to have it be maintained for the benefit of the Australian people and the world.

And the world has noticed. UNESCO awarded the park World Heritage status in 1987 for the value of the nature, and in 1994 for its cultural value. They also conferred a Picasso Gold Medal in 1995 for setting new international standards for World Heritage management, recognizing the excellence of the joint management model.

Way to go Australia!

Up Close to the Rock

Uluru is not the largest inselberg in the world, but is close to it. As a single monolith, it is larger than Kata Tjuta, though Mount Olga is 600 feet higher. Like Kata Tjuta, what we see on the surface is much smaller than what continues underground - it's much like a land based iceberg. It, too, was formed from the sediments washed from the Petermann Range, but unlike the conglomerate rock chunks in the domes of Kata Tjuta, this rock is made up of a feldspar rich sandstone, called arkose. It was turned on its side to 85 degrees from horizontal, by the same tectonic forces 450-300 million years ago. It is hard for me to imagine how an entire rock of his size can be rotated in this way without fracturing apart!

Kantju Gorge

I don't think knowing either the park history, or the geology, caused the sense of power emanating from this unique rock as we drove and walked around the base. It was the sheer enormity and uniformity of the rock that I felt, almost as a vibration within. It really was extraordinary!

The Rainbow Serpent - How Did it Get Up There!

No doubt this sense of power was part of the reason the Anangu came here for ceremony. There are 40 sacred sites around the six mile base and many creation stories - some for men, some for women and some that can be shared with both genders. Most of these stories explain the physical features that are found here, like the serpent-like shape you see in the rock above. The stories also teach lessons about how to behave.

Anangu elders allow some of these stories to be shared with visitors to the park, as was the case with the Mala Story that we witnessed in the Wintjiru Wiri drone show. Our guides shared three of these stories with us, but unfortunately, the National Park website says:

"Please do not replicate or re-tell Tjukurpa stories. Parks Australia can not give permission for the use of ANAGU Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property which includes, but is not limited to the use of names and re-telling of cultural stories in any part."

The stories are online, posted on signage around the park and shared by our guides, so what's a blogger to do?

Do You See a Python Resting it's Head Here?

That's hard, because the stories explain things that one sees on the rock. The photo above looks like the head of a woma python resting on the rock below. The associated story tells of a terrible battle she had with a poisonous brown snake. She won the battle, but in order to save her nephew's spirit after he had been speared by the snake, she had to take on spirit form and leave her body behind. It is her head that formed the rock here - you can see her eye and nostrils facing down toward the lower right corner of the photo. The Rainbow Serpent - the serpent shape high on the rock in the previous photo, was created when her spirit combined with that of her nephew. It is worth noting hat the mostly horizontal mark of the Rainbow Serpent on the rock is quite inconsistent with the usual vertical markings that arise from water flowing down. Can you explain how it got there?

These stories explain the natural phenomena seen here (Tjukurpa), and they also teach lessons to children. Some of the lessons of this story were, trust your instincts (the python had been far away when she felt something was wrong here) and always take care of family. Learning this story would allow you to easily remember there is water here, too, as the Rainbow Serpent would be visible up to 13 miles away and there is always water at the base. Glenn also suggested that it also reveals that one should never underestimate a woman, but I'm not sure that's a traditional teaching!

The Scar of Uluru - The Climb

Since the opening of the park, many visitors have been thrilled to climb to the top. The photo shows the 'Tjukaritja', the physical evidence of their presence. It's the white line you see from the impact of many feet. Between 200,000 to 370,000 visitors came here each year, before 2019, when this climb was closed. 75% of those people came to climb to the top - that's millions of ascents. There were 138 poles in the rock with a 450 yard chain to provide support, but it was a very steep surface to negotiate.

The Anangu couldn't understand why all these people wanted to do that - they called the climbers 'ants' as they saw the line of small figures going up the rock. Unfortunately, many climbers did not understand the nature of what they were embarking on. Some died by falling off, some died later in their hotel rooms - probably from heat stroke or dehydration. When this happened the Angangu customs required that 'Sorry Business' be undertaken - work that allows mourning, honoring the dead and helping the spirit to move on from this place.

Apart from the deaths, many climbers did not appreciate that this rock had no bathroom facilities. People expected to have a bathroom, wanted a cafe, trash cans. The only thing up there, was a book on a stand for people to sign their names in, to record their ascent.

Sadly, even after making all the effort to get there, people were leaving trash, camera batteries, dirty diapers on top of the rock. Add human waste to these other things and you can imagine what rolled down during the heavy rain that does arrive in the wet. The precious waterholes at the base of the rock became contaminated with e-coli and heavy metals from people's thoughtlessness.

Now imagine if a precious cathedral were treated in this way! It would horrify us. So it should come as no surprise that the Park Board eventually decided to close the walk to the summit in 2019. It was a crazy year with many more people coming to complete the challenge before it closed, political protestors...the whole shebang. Were I younger and had better knees, I might have felt regret that it was closed, but hearing the rationale leads me to agree with the decision.

Many Holes

As we saw at Kata Tjuta, there are many holes in the rock. While previous traditions might say these are holes made by creation sprits when their spears missed their targets, science says it it due to erosion from wind and water, along with rapid contraction and expansion from temperature changes. Maybe mysterious creatures carried rock away, leaving these holes. You can choose which explanation is most probable?

When the poles were removed from the climbing route, it left holes in the sandstone, so there was a dilemma on how to fill them. The solution lay in the actions of some of the rule-breaking public, who had taken sand or rocks away from Uluru as souvenirs. In the 1970's, as awareness of the sacred nature of 'the rock' grew, people started feeling guilt, or believed they had drawn bad luck to themselves, due to their removal of the sacred object. Known as Sorry Rocks started, they started arriving back to the national park, often with letters of apology. After the title deed was returned o the Anangu in the 80's, the numbers increased and now they receive between 250 and 300 packages each year!

These are the materials that have been placed in the holes left when the poles were removed - the Sorry Rocks - along with an epoxy cement to match the color and texture of the surface.

The Old Mala Men - Kulpi Watiku

You can tell its hard for me to tear myself away from here, so I will share just one more story. I mentioned the Mala*** Story that we had seen told with drones and music. It involves an evil curse that resulted in all the Mala people who remained in this area being destroyed by a monstrous devil dog.

This cave was the senior men's cave, where Anangu elders camped, made fires and prepared tools. They would keep an eye out for the 'bush boys' who were in a nearby cave (The Teaching Cave - Kulpi Nyiinkaku) and also watch for hunters returning.

It is a remarkable cave - almost like a capsule. The grey is the actual color of the sandstone. The red we see is a result of the iron being oxidized at the surface. The sculpture-like wall at the back of the cave was quite peculiar. The Mala story tells us it is Tjukaritja - the old Mala men who stayed and were destroyed by the devil-dog. I challenge you to find a better explanation!

*** A Mala is a rufous hare-wallaby that is now endangered, following the introduction of predators like foxes and cats in the 1930's. Populations of these small, nocturnal marsupials only remain on offshore islands and in special predator-free areas on the mainland. There is a successful conservation program here, which is increasing populations within safe enclosures.

Stairway to Heaven?

Sadly, it was time for us to move on.

Uluru, a Very Special Place

I had expected this to be a terribly touristy experience and went there because, in spite of my snobbery, it 'ticked a box' on my list. I was very surprised at the impact it has had on me and am grateful to have been there. Thank you Angangu people for sharing your private land with us all.

Lake Amadeus

On our way back to Alice Springs we stopped off to see part of the salt lake - Lake Amadeus - that had been the downfall of Ernest Giles's expedition in 1782..........

Mount Conner (Attila) or 'Fooluru'

.......... and on the other side of the road, another rock called Mount Conner, also known as 'Foolero'. (and yes, I was one of those who was fooled by it before we arrived at Uluru.) Now you're getting the drift! Yes, Mount Conner is another inselberg, this time a flat-topped mesa. It is lower than Uluru, but three times the circumference. It was the women's sacred site and is associated with the story of the Seven Sisters - you might remember I posted a photo of a dramatic painting depicting this story in Darwin.

Our Guides - Colin (Left) and Glenn (Right)

Sadly, it was time to say goodbye to Colin and Glenn, our two very knowledgeable guides. We had been presented with an awesome amount of information in our short visit to this amazing part of the world. I felt that we were very fortunate to have the knowledge base of both of these man available to us.

Glenn, in particular, shared family experiences from growing up on Tiwi Island, which made some of the practices and stories easier to relate to. So much of what was shared was foreign to me. To say 'I understand', would be a mis-statement. I certainly have been exposed to a lot more information and I can hope that at some point in the future it might convert to knowledge, as I continue to process.

I leave you with this story from Glenn.

"The original culture, it's very different from the West. As you think about Western culture, it's all about curiosity, all of our questions, asking, asking. Our (Tiwi) culture is a little bit different. We're quite opposite. We're a listening culture. My Mom used to say to me, 'Glenn, you've got two ears, two eyes, and you've got one mouth for a reason: you should listen and observe more than you should be talking!"

I like Glenn's mother's point of view! ....... so now, I'll stop talking! See you next time!

**Words to From Little Things Big Things Grow

Gather round people let me tell you a story
An eight year long story of power and pride
British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiari
Were opposite men on opposite sides

Vestey was fat with money and muscle
Beef was his business, broad was his door
Vincent was lean and spoke very little
He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor