Please Read About My Walkabout In Australia

Travel Agents...After Alice Springs we went to Uluru, which is the Aboriginal word for Ayers Rock. Uluru is the center of entire continent and the spiritual home to many of the Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal culture is the bedrock for every other culture in Australia, but its culture has also been subject to racial persecution. Being a travel agent I got to see this first hand.

The Aboriginal history is communicated through songs (ancestral history lessons) that are passed down from generation to generation, and their culture is learned through a walkabout with the tribal elders. The recent movie Australia accurately showed this part of the Aboriginal culture.

The first amazing experience at Uluru occurred at sunset at a "Sounds of Silence" dinner in the open desert as we viewed the sun setting on Uluru. The colors went from orange, to green, to blue, and then to black. At the conclusion of dinner, all the candles and lights were extinguished, which left only the light of the moon and stars. Remember, you are now in the Southern Hemisphere and are seeing constellations, the Milky Way, and planets not visible in Chicago, especially with the light pollution from the city. Here you are in the middle of the desert. Through a telescope we saw Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, and Venus just to name a few. The stars were alive with their heavenly glory and put on a show of fantastic proportions. I never knew astronomy could be this much fun.

The second amazing experience occurred on a sunrise tour of Uluru that was led by a recent Australian college graduate who had returned from living six months with an aboriginal family in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Besides the incredible color changes on Uluru as the sun was rising, the guide proceeded to share the spirituality of what made Uluru special and why it should be revered. We were led in and out of the base of Uluru over three hours, and at each turn there was another story of the songs on Aboriginal history.

It was magical because we could not get enough of what made Uluru special. At the right moment, the guide then switched over to the geography, or secular side of Uluru, and proceeded to explain how it was created. Uluru is considered the tip of a mountain that is buried in sediment that was created millions of years ago. The mountain range, which supposedly stretched the length of the continent, was considered the tallest in the world but climate changes weathered down the mountain range to create the vast desert you find today. All that is left is Uluru and some other small monoliths.