Sunrise at Uluru is one of the must do's for tourists visiting Australia so I joined the crowds this morning for the awe inspriring spectacle. It truly is a beautiful thing to witness, though doing it with over five hundred of your closest friends takes away a bit. It's hard to detract too much because it really is an amazing experience as the sun first hits the rock and then moves its way down changing colors as it goes. The thing Ifound most fascinating about the crowd though is that by about 20 minutes after sunrise, everybody is gone. I am not exaggerating either. It takes maybe two minutes for the sun to rise enough to light the entire rock and twenty minute laters everybody is gone. I was pleasantly enjoying photographing Uluru in beautiful morning light but the people were gone. It really was quite astonishing.
After I had taken the photos I wanted, Ipacked up my gear and set out on the Uluru Base Walk. This walk circles the base of Uluru allowing you to see the rock fairly close up and get a much different perspective than from either the sunset or sunrise viewing points. I really enjoyed seeing this very different perspective and took a lot of photos during my walk.
For those who have never been there, you might find this interesting. Uluru is a very sacred place for the local Aboriginal tribes. There are a number of sacred sites along the base walk that are closed to the public and it is even prohibited to photograph these areas. In addition, the Aboriginal people will not climb Uluru. The Australian Federal Government has opened a climb to the top and people are allowed to do it, conditions permitting. However, the local tribes ask visitors to respect their wishes and not climb and to explore the area on the other walks. Ultimately, it is up to the individual whether or not they climb the rock. I found this quite interesting and thought I would share it.
Ihad a very lovely evening at the sunset view point where I spent the late afternoon and evening photographing sunset at Uluru. Ifound sunset to be even more spectacular than sunrise with even a greater change in the oranges and reds of the rock. Basically, I arrived early and set up my camera and then waited, taking a series of images from later afternoon until well after sunset. My hope was to capture the changing of the colors but I will have to wait to see if the images came out when I get the film developed.
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