This article was originally posted by Bev Malzard of Travel Gal Travels and was republished with permission.
About 20 years ago, I caught a bus from Alice Springs, a town at the heart of Australia, to see what was then called Ayers Rock, the grand monolith that sits at the centre of Australia like an anchor, tied to the ground holding the continent in place.
I felt that the area was somewhere I had been before, but like many Australians who think they have seen it, I was fooled by the mystery and the pictures in my head.
Travelling in a bus for around three hours, nodding off along the way, I looked up and saw it. In the distance, across a flat terrain largely empty except for a few wan She Oak trees with a light breeze wafting through their scrappy, spiky tendrils, was The Rock.
The great red blister on the horizon beckoned. The monster rock – now officially gazetted as Uluru – is an ‘inselberg’ (literally an island mountain), sacred to the Pitjantjara Ananagu Aboriginal people.
Uluru is a UNESCO World Heritage-Listed site and together with Kata Tjuta (also known as The Olgas), are the major natural features of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.
In this extraordinary landscape there are a few experiences – some only recent additions to the Alice – that you cannot miss:
It’s hard to believe that 25 years ago some ‘bright spark’ created the unique fine dining experience in the Australian desert, under the stars in a world of silence.
The Sounds of Silence is an award-winning dinner experience at Uluru, and since the beginning guests have encountered a vast and glorious canopy of stars blanketing them from above.
It is at this ultimate dining experience, with toes in the sand, where guests are surprised by fine food and wine and then, if they’re lucky, have their first sighting of the Rings of Saturn via a telescope in a cloudless black-sky night. The haunting sounds of the didgeridoo welcomes you to the country – your heart swelling as you acknowledge that you’re in the centre of Australia and immersed in an experience of a lifetime.
Another dining experience to consider is that of Tali Wiru, meaning ‘beautiful dune’ in the local Anangu language.
Tali Wiru operates seasonally between March and October, and the experience is part of the Ayers Rock Resort’s Bush Tucker Journeys programme.
Each course is delivered to your table and matched with an appropriate wine for the occasion.
Sitting quietly, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by it all – all is the unusual, the wonder and the awesomeness (a word not used lightly here). This brilliant gourmet meal starts with canapés by the fading light, then on to a particularly amusing bouche, followed by an entrée of Moreton Bay bugs (can it get any better?) and then Wagyu beef. And as you anticipate a dessert of rosella and lychee petit gateaux, you draw breath and take in your surrounds.
At Uluru the lights are on. Australia’s spiritual heart is illuminated by 50,000 globes ‘planted’ in the sand and as the sun sets they come to light, glowing by the strength of solar-powered optic fibres.
This extraordinary installation is the brainchild of British artist, Bruce Munro, who with his team of locals installed thousands of slender stems crowned with frosted glass spheres.
For an unparalleled experienced you can be ‘in the light’ when you combine a Sounds of Silence dinner with a Field of Light tour. The soft lights spread across the desert floor behind you, and you’ll tuck into a tasty three-course buffet menu before being invited to walk the pathways glistening with rhythms of coloured light.
There is an emotional response of joy and maybe even melancholy – Munro’s aim? – experiencing this beauty.
These three experiences will be sure to satisfy the soul. They did mine.