It's hard to explain why such a huge lump of sandstone sticking out in the middle of nowhere where it clearly doesn't belong should hold such an attraction to over ½ million people who visit it each year but, whatever it is, it made us spend more time looking around the world's largest monolith than at any other attraction in Australia including The Great Barrier Reef (which came a close second).

Apart from sticking out like a sore thumb, Uluru, as it called by its reinstated Aboriginal owners, is most famous for its ever changing colours particularly at sunrise and sunset. We arrived mid-afternoon after a long drive from Alice Springs but we drove straight past our hotel eager to take our first look at this impressive natural wonder. Once we had satisfied our initial craving, we went back to our hotel to check-in and freshen up but we returned in good time to catch our first sunset viewing where the already abnormally red rock gradually turned a deeper shade. We returned again, just before dawn the following morning, to take a look at the view from the other side at sunrise. The colours were just as good at dawn but this view is much less famous probably because this opposite profile looks much more rounded.

Uluru (Ayers Rock) at Sunset: 2¼ miles long, 1½ miles wide and 348m high, Uluru is made from a single piece of sandstone which extends a further 3 miles below the desert surface. It is composed of sedimentary rock with its layers surprisingly running vertical with the oldest layer on the left and the youngest on the right.

The Climb:
I've been fascinated by Ayers Rock ever since I first heard about it. When I found out that the majority of people who visit it also climb up it, I wanted to be one of them if only to find out how the general public get up something that appears to have vertical sides! I always imagined that it was only steep at the front and that the path went up a more gentle slope at the back. However I was wrong on both counts: it is steep all the way around (but somehow not as steep as all the pictures make it look) and the path does go up the front!

There really is no reason to climb up Uluru. After all, the main attraction of it is that it is a huge lump of rock sticking up in the middle of a flat desert floor and if you climb up it then you are standing on top of the only thing worth seeing for miles around. I knew this, and yet when I read in our guidebook that the Aborigines don't like people climbing up it, I was really disappointed as I thought that I might not be able to go up it after all. I imagined that there would be some sort of picket line discouraging people from going up but there was actually only a relatively small sign at the base politely requesting that people respect the Aborigines' wishes. This sign was dwarfed by another one warning prospective climbers of the risks they were taking if they climbed up the rock - apparently climbers regularly die from heart attacks or falls and there are commemorative plaques at the base for some of them.

This aerial view of Uluru shows its real shape and gives you a better feel for how steep the sides really are. The famous sunset profiles are taken from the left (Northwest) side. I've highlighted the path to the top.

The climb was actually closed on the day that we arrived due to high winds. They also close it whenever the temperature gets too high - which happens every day not long after dawn during the summer! However, it was open the following day and, although I felt guilty going against the owners' wishes, the steady stream of people already climbing made me give in to my irrational desire to go up.

The path to the top is about a mile long and is split into two distinct sections. The first half follows the top of a ridge and it is steep: it varies between about 1-in-1 and 1-in-2 and rises about ¾ of the total height. There are no steps so it is very hard on the ankles and calves but there is an unsightly chain "banister" to hold onto which probably saves a few people from falling. Shortly after we'd started the climb we saw that the park rangers were closing it. This was slightly worrying but as they didn't call anybody back we assumed that it was just a precaution against weather that was forecast for later on in the day.

Walk down Uluru (Ayers Rock)

The climb seemed never ending as the varying slope prevented us from ever seeing very far ahead. We eventually reached a flat area at the end of the chain where many people were resting. This is where a lot of people turn back probably because there is no chain along the second half of the climb. Well it was and it wasn't. We were already most of the way up but the route was no longer a steady incline. The chain was replaced by a dashed white line painted on the surface to guide us along the safest route to the top. It eventually turned to head across the sedimentary layers and consequently there was a lot of fairly steep ups and downs over ridges. However the main problem was with the incredibly strong winds that were blowing up the valleys from the other side (presumably the reason that they closed the climb).

Millions of years of erosion by both wind and rain have resulted in quite a variety of rock formations around the base including its own version of Wave Rock and some caves that contain Aboriginal rock art. At one point I thought that I had uncovered the secret of why the rock is so unbelievably red when I saw what looked like red paint running down the side onto grey rock. However it turns out that Uluru is naturally grey but the iron content in the rock "rusts" to give it its characteristic red colour and this was just rust running over a sheltered overhang (or so they say!).

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) This rock formation is one of the only features that break up the monotonous landscape visible from the top of Uluru but you have to drive up to it to get a view like this as it is around 25 miles away. Kata Tjuta is another sacred Aboriginal site. Its name means “many heads” as it is composed of many eroded sandstone domes. There are a couple of walks which tourists are allowed to go on including “the valley of the winds” which we went on. Its surface looks very different to Uluru's as this sandstone formation is from a different geological era.