Ayers Rock

We had to do something to recover from the horrors of yesterday's turkey and our general crabbiness, so this afternoon we decided to go see some more of the rock art described in my library book. Ayers Rock is so near us, so easy to get to, I don't understand why we'd not only never seen it before, we'd never even heard of it.

But now that I've seen it, I'm glad it's not better known, because it's both lovely and unprotected.

To get there, you take 395 north to the Coso Junction rest area and then drive about 8 miles on various roads, none of them bad (yes, I'm being vague on purpose). Fortunately, this time the book's directions were good, because there are no signs telling you what you're driving towards until you finally see this one:

although the "parking" it refers to is really sketchy -- there's no "lot" per se. We parked in a sort of open area near a trail sign and got out to look around. At first the boos said they didn't want to go (still nervous) but we convinced them that it was no big deal and we were mainly going to take a hike.

There was a sign about Ayers Rock lying on the ground nearby. I don't know why it's called Ayers Rock, by the way, but I assume it's a nod to the famous rock in Australia.

We read the sign carefully and then started down the trail, or so we thought.

The trail was REALLY sketchy, mostly just footprints in the sand. It wasn't until we got to Ayers Rock that we realized there is another, better trail. And when we got back to the parking lot and looked at the trail sign again, we realized that someone had tried to alter it to point to the real trail (see the crude arrow pointing left):

Anyway, it didn't really matter (except for the fact that the BLM sign specifically says to stay on the trail). Ayers Rock is so big that you can see it regardless of whether you're on the trail or not.

Ayers Rock has pictographs, not petroglyphs -- meaning that the rock art is painted, not etched into the rock. Pictographs are more fragile than petroglyphs, but the pictographs on Ayers Rock are supposedly not that old, painted maybe 100-150 years ago. They're still really cool.

 It's hard to know how to treat a "sacred site." We did our best to leave no trace of our visit, and we did not bring anything back with us. The sign near the trailhead warned us not to take "stone flakes," so we didn't. But honestly, it would take a LOT of visitors to remove all the bits of obsidian from the site.

They're everywhere.

The moon was up when we were there, though it was broad daylight. Its presence made the whole experience just slightly surreal. Nice place, Ayers Rock. I hope it can stay that way.