Uluru.

Uluru, Norther Territory.

Ages ago, sometime in the last century, I looked at a big old map of a place called Australia. Australia was a big golden shape. In the centre of this big golden shape was a big red rock called Ayer’s Rock. I had no idea who Ayer was, but I liked the idea of his rock. Only.. it wasn’t Ayer’s rock at all. It was Uluru.

It is Uluru. (OK, I think, officially, it is allowable to call it by both names ... in an Derry/Londonderry manner, but Uluru rolls off the tongue in a lovely, almost onomatopoeic way... the folds of the tongue echoing the folds of the big, red, giant itself. Oooolerooo,)

There’s no getting away from Uluru. It is, let’s face it, the poster-boy of Australia. Yes… you can build opera houses anywhere. Yes … you can have unique animal species on any continent. But. Giant, sacred, sandstone mesas in a red desert … there is only one Uluru. 

Only there isn’t.

There it is, see?, on the tea-towels, the keyrings, the coasters, the fridge-magnets, the postcards, the caps, the bumperstickers, the lighters. You can’t miss it. Uluru is everywhere. 

Only it isn’t.

Uluru is officially on the way to nowhere: one goes to Uluru. It’s an expedition. A pilgrimage. All roads for the traveller in Australia, at one point, lead to Uluru. It’s a must-see.

It’s also a near 300 mile drive from Alice,... but once you turn off the Stuart at the Desert Oaks Motel (a decent flat white in road house that shakes with each passing 16-wheeler), you lose the (impressively scary and take no prisoners) road-trains ...but find, instead, the ant-like trails of relentless rental camper-vans heading to and fro, to and from, Uluru.

Mount Conner provides a warm-up. This often over-looked (ie: missed) mesa rears up first, some way distant from its bigger, more attractive brother. It looks similar, but isn’t as sexy. Not as cool. Still fools the odd snapper into thinking they’ve arrived ahead of schedule, mind. And I quite like that about it.

Regardless, it’s worth a stop to take some long range shots. We pulled into a rest-stop and scuttled up the red sand bank on the verge for a better angle. Sadly for Mount Conner, we were rewarded for our efforts with a stunning view in the other direction … across an expanse of salt-pan, gleaming white and pink and blue like ice. 

Another hour down the road and suddenly, and quietly and finally: it’s there. Like Christmas ...it just sneaks up on you in the end. But my. 

The size. The folds. The creases. The scale. The colour. It is all so stunning. You literally struggle to take it all in. (Note to photographers: do pack that wide-angle lens).

From the air, it actually doesn’t look real. We’re in a helicopter, being buffeted about and I’m staring down the back of the camera trying a) not to drop the camera out of the (non-existent) door, because – as Michael no. 3 comfortingly warned – “That’d be no fun for any of us”; and b) to keep the camera sort of steady as yet another blast of air tunnels through the cockpit, and c) to keep the camera in some hope of focus at the same time … and all the time I’m thinking “I am two thousand feet in the air looking at Uluru/Ayers Rock. I am in that old golden map and at the red dot in the middle,” and it feels... unbelievable.

Of course, everyone tells you it’s sunrise and sunset where the rock comes into its own supreme beauty. They say that because they’re right.

Sunset; the sky dims from the deep blue of an Australian desert sky to a pale aura around the deepening red, brown, purple, chocolate of the rock itself – the shadows lengthen, deepen, disappear and appear to change the face of the rock. It’s a sight all right. People line up in special sunset viewing areas. Others risk the wrath of the Park Rangers and pull up on the side of the road. But everyone just … stares ... at the rock, and … waits.

Sunrise: and the rock looms out of the dark horizon; mauve, pink, grey, and smokey, like a memory. You can do a camel-ride at dawn and watch the sun come up and seem to call the desert into life for another day. I thought it sounded a bit corny, to be honest. But it looked beautiful. Moving, actually.

But… If I’m totally honest … The tourists did put me off Uluru a tad. 

It’s one of those places you want to yourself. You want your sunset to be Your Sunset. Not everyone else’s sunset as well. 

But like Mr Ayer, who actually didn’t ‘discover’ the rock anyway. It was named in his honour by William Gosse in 1873, no one owns Uluru really. We all do. 

Or rather, we all have our own Ulurus.

I’ve had mine since staring at that red dot on that golden map in a classroom back in 1972. 

The first peoples have a much longer and more powerful idea about Uluru, dating back thousands of years, not 40. And you can see why the rock is sacred to the Aborigine people. It’s sacred to us all.

Of course it is. How could it not be? It’s Uluru. 

Camels. Tourists. Sunrise. Uluru.