Uluru is Many Places I’ve Been Before
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The sun was just starting to peak out around the reddish rock. I pulled down the brim of my baseball cap to shade my eyes as rays of light shot out of the clouds and onto my path. The path around the base of Uluru was nearly empty in this section. Not many tourists venture out around the perimeter when visiting Uluru; instead, they seem to stay at the main points of interest and then get in their car and drive to the next one. But my Longitude 131 guide, Mark, suggested I go for a walk and get a better ‘feel’ for Uluru.
Uluru is Australia’s most sacred site for the Aboriginal people, called Anangu. Believed to have been formed by the activities of ancestral beings in creation time (aka Dreamtime), Uluru includes caves, waterholes, and ancient rock paintings. The traditional name for the sandstone rock, Ayers Rock, was the name given by European explorers; it is now referred to by its Anangu name, Uluru.
After hearing Mark’s countless stories about Uluru and how the Anangu people used the rock to tell stories of their creation, I longed for a connection to this sacred place, and getting out to walk in more seclusion was just what I needed to process it all.
However, instead of more of a connection to Uluru, I found my mind wandering as I walked along the path with the giant red monolith to my left and flat desert to my right. I had a lucidity that I normally only get when I run. As I looked at the landscape, absorbed the colors, inspected the trees, and processed the Anangu stories Mark told me, I found myself transported to many places I had been before in the world.
After years of circumnavigating the globe, my view of the world is like a patchwork quilt – stitched together memories of places, feelings, landmarks, people, colors, and countries. They all sort of blend together after a while and remind me of each other. It’s rare that a place feels really new or different to me any longer – and that’s the downside of traveling for 8 years. Yet in some ways that’s what keeps me going – trying to find those new, unique places that aren’t like anything I have experienced before.
Often, our brains make sense of new things by comparing them to past memories. This morning, I was not really taking a walk around Uluru; I was taking a walk through my quilt of memories. Every corner I would go around, every place I would look, I had a familiar feeling transporting me to another place on the globe I had been before.
Table of Contents
Uluru and Petra
Uluru wasn’t Uluru; it was the Siq of Petra with its wind-eroded walls carving tunnels that looked like petrified waves.
Uluru and Cappadocia
The red monolith made of sandstone had the same strange ‘other-worldly’ feel as the limestone formations in Cappadocia in Türkiye, yet in reddish rock instead of white.
Uluru and the Grand Canyon
When I first set eyes on Uluru, I felt the same sense of awe and greatness as when I lay eyes on the Grand Canyon for the first time.
Uluru Dreamtime Stories and Hawaii Mythology
The Anangu stories of creation reminded me of the mythology of Hawaii and its ancient volcano character.
Uluru Anangu Family Circles and Mongolian Nomads
The nomadic culture of the Anangu reminded me of the nomads of Mongolia, where traditions rule and family units work as one.
Uluru and Oman
And finally, the trees and changing colors of Uluru transported me back to the colorful gorges of Oman with its oasis of green trees.
Memories are how we make sense of a place, but each place is its own.
During your travels, have you experienced places that remind you of others? Please share in the comments!
Disclosure: I was a guest of Tourism NT during my time in the Northern Territory of Australia. However, all the opinions expressed here are solely my own!
And I kind of see the similarity of why you thought these thoughts. Anangu used the rock to tell the stories of the creators and the memories of the old. Isn’t that in essence what you did walking around the Uluru? Maybe that’s why the Anangu look at Uluru the same way.
Amazing pictures of nature, especially the limestone structures! Hard not to feel like this takes you some place special! Thanks for sharing!
I could let my imagination run wild in these amazing places. Wonderful pictures.
I love your musings as much as your beautiful photos.
When we drove from the desert dunes of
Erg Chebbi through the Dodas valley, and the Gorge, and approached the high Atlas in Morocco, I was struck by the similar colors, formations and feelings of the Desert Southwest.
They are on the about the same latitude, so perhaps they were once connected before the continents drifted apart?
The picture “Cappadocia’s white limestone formations” is beautiful. Those limestones look like penguins 🙂