Next gallery: APY lands

Come on a privileged journey into a remote part of Australia where few outsiders have ever stepped as AG discovers the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, or Aboriginal APY lands.

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Uluru is the biggest monolith on Earth. 

Surveyor William Christie Gosse was the first European to reach the Rock and the first to climb it, with his Afghan cameleer, Kamaran, on 20 July 1873. He wrote: “This rock is certainly the most wonderful natural feature I have ever seen,” said Gosse. He named the monolith “Ayers Rock” after Sir Henry Ayers – who would, ironically, remain as the SA colony’s Chief Secretary only until the following day. 

Usually, you’re lucky to see good waterfalls for half an hour just a few times a year. But, this is one of Uluru’s most incredible sights. 

On 26 October 1985 there was an official ‘Handback’ of the Rock. Amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act and the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act gave the Anangu people inalienable freehold title to the park area through the Uluru Kata-Tjuta Land Trust. 

Uluru is made up of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock composed of many rock types including granite and basalt, and cemented by a matrix of sandstone. 

As early as 1839, camels were proposed as the solution to the problem of transport while exploring the arid Red Centre. 

Inscribed on the World Heritage List for its natural values in 1987, and as a cultural landscape in 1994, Uluru has come to be a symbol of Australia in so many ways: the vastness and ancient beauty of our land and the uniqueness of our Aboriginal cultures. 

Uluru-Kata-Tjuta National Park is named after its two most prominent and famous features Uluru and Kata Tjuta (above). 

The crevasses are due to erosion, primarily by water.

After the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) in 1976, the park became Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park in 1977. 

Uluru is located roughly 1400km south of Darwin by road and 450km south-west of Alice Springs along the Stuart and Lasseter highways.

The 1325 sq.km Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, at the heart of Australia’s Red Centre, is jointly managed by the traditional owners and Parks Australia. 

At the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre, where the local lore of the Anangu is explained in detail, there is a ‘sorry book’ filled with letters sent from people all over the world who – in a fit of guilt or perhaps superstition – have returned souvenired rocks.

The Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) purchased the iconic Ayers Rock Resort for $300 million in 2010.

The first recorded sighting by a European of the area was in 1872 when explorer William Ernest Giles and his expeditioners saw Kata Tjuta (meaning “many heads” in the Pitjantjatjara language) from across a large, impassable salt lake that he later named Lake Amadeus (above). 

Life becomes verdant and even flowers such as nectar-filled honey grevillea (Grevillea eriostachya) decorate the base of Uluru in wet years.  

Every year more than 400,000 people visit the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park from all over the world.