Beyond the black stump

Uluru – Northern Territory June 2016 (5 photos)

Above is the scene that greeted me one clear cold morning, a few minutes after the sun had started to peek across the horizon.

In the far distance, you can see the peaks of Kata Tjuta, in addition to the view of Uluru. You can appreciate how flat the land is; Kata Tjuta is approximately 30km away from Uluru.

But what really attracted me to take this shot was the dead tree in the foreground. It provides an interesting counterpoint to the rock formations.

Here, the local Anungu aboriginal people conduct regular burns of the bushland. It’s all part of the cycle of regeneration and caring for the land.

Patch burning is a controlled plan of burning numerous small fires. It is designed to protect the Park vegetation from destructive burning. The many small patches are burned so that large areas are protected from accidental burning. Patch burning works by reducing the amount of fuel in patches and strips throughout the Park. These strips and patches break the full force of a natural fire allowing it to burn out and can also be a refuge for animals whose homes and foraging grounds are in the wake of the fire. This limits the amount of damage any one fire can cause in the Park.

The process is progressive so that regrowth is staged. Re-establishing the mosaic for the entire Park takes around 20 years as only about five percent of the Park is burned in any year. Patch burning also has the ecological advantages of providing shelter and regrowth to support the Park fauna.

As a result there are many dead and burnt trees in this area to photograph.

The Australian expression ‘black stump’ is the name for an imaginary point beyond which the country is considered remote or uncivilised, an abstract marker of the limits of established settlement. Thus, the phrase “beyond the black stump” refers to somewhere beyond civilisation; commonly interpreted as the Outback.

It’s a beautiful place to visit. Thanks for visiting it with me.

Above, I concentrated more on the tree, shooting it in portrait mode, utilising a narrower view to emphasise the subject.

Now back to a wide landscape view …