Rain in the Desert

This is a very, very, very, very...

...Very unusual view of Uluru, also known with its English name of Ayers Rock. Probably the most famous natural attraction in Australia.

Unusual for two reasons: the first is that 99% of the pictures of the largest monolith in the planet show its whole size from afar. There is a good reason: Uluru is just majestic, a hill which is not a hill but in reality a huge single rock made of sandstone and carved through the ages by the power of wind and rain. The Aboriginal People venerate it since its discovery, at least ten thousand years ago.

The second reason is that all those nice pictures you will find online, shows Ayers Rock at the peak of its magic: that is, during sunrise and sunset, when on a clear day it glows of a bright red like a beacon in the middle of the desert, visible from a distance of several miles in every direction.

This can lead to thinking that the Great Australian Desert (which is more precisely a combination of several different deserts) might be a dry, scorching hot place. Well, not always. It does rain in Uluru, at least once a month, and rain is responsible for the carving of many small canyons like the one in the picture.

When the rain is enough, hundreds of tiny streams fall in the natural pools at the bottom of the rock and the local Aboriginal kids can jump and slide into them. And this chameleonic rock changes colour again turning brown and grey.

Uluru is 348 meters tall for a total circumference of 9.4 km: do you think it’s big? Well, over 90% of its mass is underground, like icebergs. It goes down for 2,500 meters; if you want to climb it you need to hurry. Because of the spiritual importance linked to the Aboriginal beliefs, access to the top of the rock will be forbidden from October 2019.