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The Tiger Tjalkalyirri Memorial Lookout

The Tiger Tjalkalyirri Memorial Lookout

In our increasingly Orwellian world, there are a mere 200 days to go until darkness descends on Ayers Rock and the summit trail up its western climbing spur, experienced by about seven million visitors from all around the world, is banned. Destruction of the climbing chain, five memorial plaques and the summit cairn is scheduled shortly after the ban is in place.

The views from the summit are so magnificent they form an integral reason for the Park’s World Heritage listing. The irony that accessing those World Heritage views via the climb will become illegal is lost on Parks Australia and the board of management.

In one of those rendings of the time-space continuum, a small snippet of news about our Rock has leaked through from an alternate universe — one in which the Whitlam government never saw the light of day and the welfare wreck it created was never able to poison a proud, self-reliant people.

 Red Centre Times 10/4/2019 
Feds kick in to Restore Tiger 
Uluru Station has received a federal grant to refurbish heritage monuments at Ayers Rock. The renovation work will be completed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the handover of the land to Traditional Owners overseen by the Fraser Government on 20 July, 1979. Work will include restoration of the bronze statue of the first Aboriginal Director of the Station Anangu man Tiger Tjalkalyirri and repair of the 1970 summit monument and other minor repair works.


Tiger Tjalkalyirri (pictured with John Pfitzner at Areyonga) was one of the first Aboriginal guides at the Rock (Photo Source Alice Springs News)

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