{"id":469,"date":"2006-04-03T18:42:26","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T02:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=469"},"modified":"2007-08-11T10:25:20","modified_gmt":"2007-08-11T18:25:20","slug":"the-view-from-the-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=469","title":{"rendered":"The View from the Plane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Uluru\"<\/p>\n

This was my view from the plane coming to the Red Centre, headed for the Yulara Resort. In the foreground are The Olgas, or Kata Tjuta, and in the background, closer to the horizon and only slightly obscured by the atmosphere, is Ayers Rock, or Uluru.<\/p>\n

I was going to pack a book by Robert Ruarke, titled Uhuru<\/em>, just for the sake of the irony in reading Uhuru<\/em> at Uluru, but the book is hardcover and heavy, and I wanted to pack light. Besides, I haven’t read it yet, but I’m almost absolutely certain it’s about Africa, and it seemed rude to let another continent intrude on my trip.<\/p>\n

Uluru belongs to the Aborigines, and they still perform their ancient ceremonies there, so there are sacred areas in the rock that are forbidden to non-Aboriginals, not to mention photography. It’s also copyrighted, so photographs of even the public areas are pretty tightly controlled. Commercial photographers, filmmakers, and artists have to get a special license if they want to use its likeness for profit or for public display, and anyone caught taking pictures of the sacred areas can immediately be fined $2000, no excuses.<\/p>\n

So I was very careful to shoot only when my guide said I could, and I put my camera away if we got to an area that was sacred.<\/p>\n

Even many of the stories and legends are considered sacred, so they remain a mystery to non-Aboriginal folk. The only stories the guides get to share with the public are children’s stories. After going on a hike around the base of Uluru and hearing some of those tales, I bought myself a small book of them at a local bookstore so I can read them later … because between the Australian accent, the slang, and the Aboriginal words, I knew I’d forget the stories before the day was through.<\/p>\n

I’m afraid to post any photos of the rock for now other than the one above because the guide explained to me that if I did, even on a personal web site, it’s considered public display. So I’m going to take some time looking through my collection first. I have plenty of photos that don’t involve the rock itself.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, here’s a taste. Just the view from the plane.<\/p>\nShare this post:

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This was my view from the plane coming to the Red Centre, headed for the Yulara Resort. In the foreground are The Olgas, or Kata Tjuta, and in the background, closer to the horizon and only slightly obscured by the atmosphere, is Ayers Rock, or Uluru. I was going to pack a book by Robert Ruarke, titled Uhuru, just for the sake of the irony in reading Uhuru at Uluru, but the book is hardcover and heavy, and I wanted…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}