Climbing Ayers Rock? – A Luxury Travel Blog : A Luxury Travel Blog

Ayers Rock and Uluru, it has two names. In 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted that allowed official place names to consist of both the traditional Aboriginal name and the English name. ‘Ayers Rock / Uluru’ became the first official dual-named site in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Our flight from Sydney to Uluru (for simplicity and respect we will use the traditional name) took over three hours and moved our time zone back by an hour and a half – I always thought time zones were in full hours, apparently not, there are some that move by 30 and 45 minutes, seems a lot of trouble for half of an hour.

Uluru is almost at the geographical midpoint of the country in the Red Centre – the colloquial name given to the southern desert region of the Northern Territory – flying over it we saw why. It is a barren, desolate and fiery red landscape, quite spectacular in its isolation. It really is the outback.

Our hotel The Sails in the Desert…