46 Fun Facts About Uluru

In which part of Australia is Uluru?

Northern Territory: Uluru stands in the territory's far south, so remote that no vehicle track reached it until 1948; tour buses followed in the early 1950s.

What kind of rock is Uluru made of?

Sandstone: Uluru is arkose, a coarse sandstone rich in feldspar, and its beds were later tilted almost 90 degrees, so layers that once lay flat now stand on end.

Which surveyor sighted Uluru on 19 July 1873 and named it Ayers Rock?

William Gosse was leading a government party in search of a route west to Perth when he reached the rock; two months later, finding too little water to go on, he gave up and turned back.

Who was Sir Henry Ayers, whose name Uluru took in 1873?

Chief Secretary of South Australia: Henry Ayers led the colony's government when the rock was named, and his name stood alone on it for 120 years, until the dual name Ayers Rock / Uluru was adopted in 1993.

Which language do the Anangu, the traditional owners of Uluru, speak?

Pitjantjatjara: the Anangu at Uluru speak it and the closely related Yankunytjatjara, both Western Desert dialects, and teach them to their children, so very few have English as a first language.

Uluru's 348-metre rise makes it taller than which landmark?

The Eiffel Tower stands 330 metres tall, 18 short of Uluru's rise above the plain, and the rock on show is only the tip of a slab that carries on far underground.

Roughly how long is the Base Walk around Uluru?

10 km: the Base Walk circles the entire rock through acacia woodland and past waterholes, and because the track has little shade, rangers advise hot-weather walkers to finish before 11 am.

What gives Uluru its red colour?

Rusting iron in the rock: only the weathered surface is red, while the fresh stone underneath is grey, a colour visitors can still see inside many of Uluru's caves.

Which term do geologists prefer to 'monolith' when describing Uluru?

Inselberg, German for 'island mountain': Uluru is the exposed tip of a rock slab that carries on far below the plain, so calling it a single free-standing 'monolith' misleads.

Roughly when was the sand that became Uluru laid down?

About 550–530 million years ago, sand washed off the then-towering Petermann Ranges spread in a great fan, was buried and hardened under a later sea, and was tilted on end some 400 million years ago.

What English name is also used for Kata Tjuta, the domes west of Uluru?

The Olgas: the name comes from Mount Olga, the tallest dome, named in 1872 for Queen Olga of Württemberg, because she and her husband had just made the expedition's patron a baron.

What does 'Kata Tjuta' mean in the local Aboriginal language?

Many heads: 'kata' is head and 'tjuta' means many, a fitting name for 36 rounded domes; visitors hear none of the site's stories, because it is sacred under Anangu men's law.

Which rock, likened to a plum pudding, forms Kata Tjuta's domes?

Conglomerate: the domes are pebbles and boulders, mostly granite and basalt, cemented in sand and mud, left when a fan of flood-borne rubble was buried and squeezed into rock under a later sea.

Uluru rises 348 metres above the plain; how does the tallest dome of neighbouring Kata Tjuta compare?

About 200 metres taller: Kata Tjuta's highest dome stands 546 metres above the plain against Uluru's 348, although it is Uluru, one unbroken rock, that became the national landmark.

Besides the rock itself, 'Uluru' is used by its senior traditional owners as what?

A family name: 'Uluru' is purely a proper noun with no English translation, so it names and never describes, both the rock and the family of senior custodians such as the elder Reggie Uluru.

Which explorer sighted Kata Tjuta in 1872, a year before Uluru was reached?

Ernest Giles spotted the domes of Kata Tjuta from near Kings Canyon in 1872, but salt pans barred his way south and he did not reach them until his next expedition a year later.

Which prime minister's government handed Uluru back to its Anangu owners in 1985?

Bob Hawke's government returned the land in 1985, and although the Anangu disliked the climb, their spokesman said at the time that it would be allowed to continue for now.

For how long did the Anangu lease Uluru back to the national parks agency in 1985?

99 years was the lease the Anangu had to sign as a condition of getting the land back, and it set up the joint management, under a board with an Anangu majority, that runs the park.

The Uluru climb closed in 2019 on the anniversary of which event?

The 1985 handback: the park board, with its Anangu majority, voted unanimously in 2017 to end the climb, and chose the 34th anniversary of the day the land came back as the date.

How many deaths related to recreational climbing had been recorded at Uluru as of July 2018?

37 people had died on the climb by July 2018, and each death weighed on the Anangu, who said they felt great sadness when anyone was hurt on their land and asked visitors not to go up.

What was installed on Uluru in 1964 to make the climb easier?

A chain handhold was fixed to the steepest stretch in 1964 to keep climbers safe and extended in 1976; once the climb closed in 2019, crews took it all down in under three weeks.

What did a French tourist film herself doing on Uluru's summit in 2010, renewing calls to ban the climb?

A striptease: the 25-year-old stripped to a bikini on the summit and called it a tribute to Aboriginal culture, and the Central Land Council said she should be deported.

Which Bruce Munro artwork of 50,000 stems has stood near Uluru since 2016?

Field of Light began as an idea Munro jotted in his sketchbook on a visit to Uluru decades earlier; he came back to plant it in the red sand, and it marked its tenth year in 2026.

In the Mala story, the Mala who came to Uluru to perform the inma ceremony were what kind of creature?

Rufous hare-wallabies: mala is the Anangu name for this small wallaby, once among the commonest in the desert and now extinct in the wild on the mainland, which the park is working to bring back.

What do some visitors reportedly do after taking rocks from Uluru?

Mail them back to lift a perceived curse: so-called 'sorry rocks' arrive by post at the park with letters blaming bad luck on the theft, and rangers return them to the base of Uluru.

Kuniya, who fought Liru the poisonous snake at Uluru in Anangu tradition, is what kind of animal?

A woma python: kuniya is the Anangu word for this non-venomous snake, and marks in the stone beside a waterhole at the foot of Uluru are read as traces of where her path crossed Liru's.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta's second World Heritage listing, in 1994, recognised what?

Its cultural landscape: UNESCO first listed the park in 1987 for its geology and wildlife, then again in 1994 for the living bond between that land and the beliefs of its Anangu owners.

What did generations of Anangu elders leave on the walls of caves at the foot of Uluru?

Layers of rock paintings: elders painted over the same walls again and again as they taught the young, which is why rangers liken them to a classroom blackboard only the class can fully read.

Which torch relay began its journey across Australia with a circuit of Uluru?

The Sydney 2000 Olympics: Aboriginal elders passed the flame from hand to hand at Uluru, then hockey gold medallist Nova Peris ran the first leg on home soil with her daughter beside her.

The rock was officially named 'Ayers Rock / Uluru' in 1993; what happened to that name in 2002?

The two halves swapped order: it became 'Uluru / Ayers Rock' because the regional tourism association in Alice Springs asked for the Aboriginal name to come first.

What is the resort town just outside Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park called?

Yulara was built outside the park so that the motels and campground at the foot of Uluru could close, which they did when its resort opened in 1984.

What is the Aboriginal community of about 300 people near the eastern end of Uluru called?

Mutitjulu takes its name from the waterhole beside it and is home to the Anangu who live inside the park; they value their privacy there, so visitors may enter only with a permit.

Which body bought the Ayers Rock Resort in 2011?

The Indigenous Land Corporation bought Ayers Rock Resort in 2011 and set up the National Indigenous Training Academy there, to train and employ Indigenous people in tourism and hospitality.

Which highway to Uluru is named after a prospector whose fabled reef of gold was never found?

Lasseter Highway honours Harold Lasseter, who claimed to have found a fabulously rich gold reef in the desert west of Kata Tjuta and died in 1931 trying to find it again.

Which lizard found around Uluru drinks by channelling water along grooves in its skin to its mouth?

Thorny devil: when it stands in a puddle or on wet sand, water creeps up its legs and across its body through grooves between the scales, and it eats only ants, thousands in a day.

Which baby was killed by a dingo during a family camping trip to Uluru on 17 August 1980?

Azaria Chamberlain, nine weeks old, was taken by a dingo from the family tent on 17 August 1980; her mother Lindy served more than three years for murder before new evidence freed her.

What find at Uluru in 1986 freed a mother wrongly jailed over her baby's death?

A matinee jacket near dingo lairs, the one the child had been wearing, turned up while police searched for the remains of a fallen climber, and the Chief Minister ordered the mother's release at once.

In which 1988 film did Meryl Streep play the mother whose baby was taken by a dingo at Uluru?

A Cry in the Dark, released in Australia as Evil Angels, earned Streep an Oscar nomination and reached cinemas less than two months after the courts cleared both parents.

The reforms sought by the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart are often summed up as 'Voice, Treaty' and what?

Truth: the statement asked for a Makarrata Commission to oversee agreement-making and truth-telling about history, Makarrata being, in its words, the coming together after a struggle.

What did Australians decide about the First Nations Voice at a referendum in 2023?

They rejected it: about 60 per cent voted No on 14 October 2023, and because a referendum needs a majority in at least four of the six states as well, losing all six made the defeat complete.

Which animals lie buried in the sand around Uluru until heavy rain brings them out to breed?

Frogs: four species live in the park, digging deep beneath the hot, dry surface and staying there for years until heavy rain soaks down and signals that it is time to come up and mate.

Which small crustaceans hatch in rock pools at Uluru after heavy rain?

Shield shrimps hatch within days of rain filling the pools and breed fast; when the water dries up their eggs dry out too, and wait, sometimes for years, for the next big downpour.

Which walk leads visitors in among the great domes of Kata Tjuta?

The Valley of the Winds is a steep, rocky circuit of three to four hours past two lookouts, and rangers say finishing the full loop is actually easier than turning back at the second one.

Which vast salt lake north of Uluru blocked the 1872 expedition that first sighted Kata Tjuta?

Lake Amadeus, usually a dry crust of salt, barred the way south; the expedition's leader meant to name it after his patron, who asked him to honour King Amadeo of Spain instead.

Which monitor lizard, Australia's largest, lives in the dunes and rocky country around Uluru?

Perentie: Australia's largest lizard grows to more than two and a half metres, climbs trees with its long claws and often rears up on its hind legs and tail to scan the country around it.

Which introduced plant is considered the most threatening weed in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park?

Buffel grass: introduced to stabilise eroded ground, it spread along the park's drainage lines, crowding out native plants and fuelling hotter fires.