The End Of The Climb

Indigenous tourism opportunities are growing around Uluru as the deadline approaches for the ban on climbing the huge Central Australian rock.

- Sam Duncan

HEAD OUT ON FOOT just north of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park’s Cultural Centre, along the Liru walk, and you’re soon in mulga forest – a typically stunted and harsh-looking stand of trees that, I’m told, is frequently softened by bursts of pretty wildflowers after rain. Look west and there it is: Uluru.

To some it’s Ayers Rock, the name explorer William Gosse gave it in 1873. To many, it’s a place of beauty and spirituality that’s been the ancestral heartland of the Anangu people for more than 30,000 years. For 400,000 visitors annually from around the world, it’s a bucket-list destination. This morning I can see about 80 people up on it. The large number indicates conditions are favourable but also reflects the surge in tourists visiting and scaling the site before the 26 October deadline when a legal ban on climbing Uluru will take effect. There are 138 steel posts drilled into the rock that, along with the guide chain linking them, are set for removal then.

This is the first time I’ve come here to see this imposing inselberg (island mountain), which is composed geologically of arkose sandstone and rises 348m above the largely flat surrounding arid landscape, and it’s as remarkable as I’d always imagined. Upon the climb some people are doubled over, clutching the knee-high safety chain. One person loses their wide-brimmed hat and it comes to rest halfway down Uluru’s western face.

The contours and features of this rust-hued icon are, for its traditional owners, physical evidence of Tjukurpa – the basis of Anangu knowledge, law, religion, social structure and moral values. The living landscape here is their Scripture.