The Red Centre - Uluru & Kata Tjuta

By Jason Cochran

First rule: When you go to Uluru, don't ask them about the dingo that ate the baby. Seriously. They don't like that joke. They like it even less when you ask about it with a lousy Australian accent. It's not funny. Not even a little bit.

With that out of the way, let me give you a little bit of travel writer's advice: If you have the time, I suggest you drive to it. Uluru is about six hours from Alice Springs, and the route takes you through some of the most distinctive countryside (if that's the term) that Australia has to offer. It's the perfect chance to sample the outback without sampling too much of the outback. After hours of hurtling past vistas of yellow spinifex scrub against a baking red moonscape, the moment the austere profile of the Rock appears on the horizon will be one of the most satisfying tourism moments you've had since you were a kid and you first laid eyes on the castle at Disneyland.

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I've seen some downright dour people fall silent at the sight of Uluru. Truthfully, I first approached it with a little bit of cynicism myself, but I soon sensed that it's no more a mere rock than the Grand Canyon is just a hole in the ground. I would never hazard a guess as to why—I just know I'm not the only person to say so. The term "lodestone" comes to mind.

Tourist brochures typically turn lurid shades of purple in testifying to the Rock's many moods at sunset, but few pause to consider the small miracle of multi-nationalism that takes place in the Australian desert after dark falls. Yulara, the resort settlement a few miles from the national park gates, is where the world meets. Chinese package tourists, European honeymooners, post-college backpackers, and a small contingent of young resident guides and hoteliers come together each night in Yulara. At the pub, as crocodile and kangaroo sizzle on the grill, people who would never otherwise meet toast each other in the lee of an international icon.

The national park's careful stewardship will also impress many Americans. Following a dark period in which flights were permitted to land on a runway right next to the Rock, the government finally teamed with local Aboriginal leaders to run the region in a more sane manner. The happy result: informed rangers, detailed cultural context, and thoughtful resort construction—not the overcrowded national-park carnival Americans have come to expect back home.

Don't forget that a half hour's drive away, on the western horizon, sits Uluru's lumpier sister, Kata Tjuta (also called The Olgas). I have no idea why it isn't as well-known as Uluru, because in many ways, its massive weathered domes are even more impressive. Yet thousands of tourists cross oceans and half the Australian continent to pay homage to Uluru and don't bother to do even a drive-by of the Olgas. Don't be one of those people.

And I'm serious about the dingo thing.


Who is Jason Cochran?
Jason Cochran has written on travel and entertainment for publications including Entertainment Weekly, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, Newsweek, theNew York Daily News, the Rough Guides, Travel + Leisure, the Village Voice, the New York Post, Marie Claire, Inside, New York Sidewalk, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Arena (U.K.), Who (Australia), Scanorama, and Seasons (Sweden). He also devised questions for the first American season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (ABC) and before that, spent nearly two years backpacking solo around the world. As a commentator, he has appeared on CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn, Fox TV, and MSNBC.com. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and New York University's Graduate Music Theatre Writing Program. He lives in Manhattan.