Alice Springs and Ayers Rock

Alice Springs and Ayers Rock Travel Guide

The luminescent light in the Red Centre -- named for the deep color of its desert soils -- has a purity and vitality that photographs only begin to approach. For tens of thousands of years, this vast desert territory has been home to Australia's indigenous Aboriginal people. Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a great symbol in Aboriginal traditions, as are many sacred sites among the Centre's mountain ranges, gorges, dry riverbeds, and spinifex plains. At the center of all this is Alice Springs, Australia's only desert city.

Uluru (pronounced oo-loo-roo), that magnificent stone monolith rising from the plains, is but one focus in the Red Centre. The rounded forms of Kata Tjuta (ka-ta tchoo-ta), also known as the Olgas, are another. Watarrka National Park and Kings Canyon, Mt. Conner, and the cliffs, gorges, and mountain chains of the MacDonnell Ranges are other worlds to explore.