The story of this place
Uluru rises 348 metres from the flat red desert of Central Australia, a single piece of arkosic sandstone that extends a further 2.5 kilometres underground. For the Anangu people, who have lived alongside Uluru for at least 30,000 years, it is a sacred site threaded through with Tjukurpa — the law, the Dreaming, the moral code that governs life. The paths up its flanks follow the sacred trails of creation ancestors, not tourist routes.
In 1985, after a decade-long land rights struggle, the Australian government handed the title of Uluru back to the Anangu people — on the condition that they immediately lease it back to the government for 99 years for joint management. The Anangu asked visitors not to climb Uluru for decades, but the practice continued until 2019, when climbing was finally permanently banned after years of negotiation. The closure came not from legal mandate but from the recognition of Anangu wishes — a small but profound step in Australia's long reckoning with Indigenous sovereignty.