I took about 20 pictures of the sunset over Uluru. The Rock changes colour with the intensity of the sun. It starts as orange (although the bright orange colour that we know from calendars can only be seen on average 8 times a year, apparently) goes through all tones of red and ends up as dark brown.
I don't know whether I was lucky or not but when I was in the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park, it was raining (I texted my sister “I’m in the middle of a desert and it’s raining” and she responded “You better stop drinking!”). The Rock is dark grey in the rain or purple in the thunderstorm.
Uluru, which used to be called Ayer's Rock until the area was returned back to Aboriginal hands, is 3.6km long and rises 348 meters above the ground. It is believed that two thirds of the Rock lies beneath the sand. It's all one piece of rock that has been pushed up during the movement of the rocky ground platforms (it took a couple of hundreds of thousands years they say – God knows).
Background information about the current owners:
"The Anangu People are the traditional owners of Uluru. If you ask the Anangu people how long they have lived at Uluru, they will tell you they have been here forever, or since Tjukurpa. But it was not until 1985 that the relevant Commonwealth Laws recognized they were the traditional owners of the land and they were able to maintain control over the area on such issues as protecting sacred sites.
Some of the activities of the ancestral beings who created people and the environment have powerful spiritual value. As traditional custodians of Uluru and Kata Tjuta, the Anangu have a religious duty to keep certain sites and certain knowledge sacred and private. Tjukurpa defines what knowledge can be shared between the Anangu people and the visitors."
Uluru as well as Kata Tjuta are two major sacred places in the area. Uluru is open to visitors (except for days when Aborigines hold their ceremonies), whereas Kata Tjuta is a protected area. Camping under Uluru is forbidden; the closes tourist resort - Yulara - is 30 km from the actual rock.
You can walk around the base of Uluru (it's a 9km walk) or you can climb Uluru (and then buy a T-shirt I climbed Uluru!) The Aboriginals don't like you climb it - they believe that the spirits of the rock shouldn't be disturbed.
If you fancy neither climbing nor walking, you can sit down on a bench and watch bottoms of the people climbing Uluru. Your company will be the bus drivers. They will be short or tall, with blond hair, dark hair or no hair, talkative or quiet, but all of them will have a huge beer belly.
"The Aboriginal residents at Uluru live at the Mutitjulu community (the population of the community is about 130). In most communities in the Central Australia, Aboriginal people speak an Aboriginal language as a first language. In Western Desert, which extends across Central Australia, a number of dialects form a chain of communication, enabling neighbouring groups to communicate easily. A relatively small percentage of Anangu people speak English regularly or fluently."
The traditional musical instrument of Aborigines is didgeridoo (if you don't know what it sounds like, check out this website or pop round to the Kingston High Street just before Christmas).
Didgeridoo is basically an eucalyptus trunk that’s been eaten inside by the termites. You can buy a huge variety of didgeridoos in Yulara although the Aboriginals in the Uluru area have never played it. Not that there wouldn’t be enough trees - but there are not the right termites. (I was told by a guy in Melbourne that the Aboriginals can play equally melancholic melodies on any kind of a pipe – even your old gutter pipe, if you bother to bring it along to Oz.)
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