This week (Thursday 20 July) marks 150 years since the first documented account of the climbing of Australia's famous Ayers Rock. While climbing the Rock likely dates back into the waning stages of the Pleistocene when humans first arrived in the red centre some 25,000 years ago (long before the arrival of the current Anangu owners who include the Dingo in their creation myths), the first person to make a record of the climb was explorer and surveyor William Christie Gosse (1842-1881) . He climbed with Afghan Cameleer Kamran on the 20th of July 1873, during an expedition to explore a route from central Australia to Perth. Since Gosse's ascent nearly 7 million people - families, couples, soloists and royalty from the four corners of the globe have emulated his achievement and stood at the summit, experiencing the thrill of the climb and joy, awe and wonder of the remarkable views of the nearby Olgas, Mt Conner, Lake Amadeus and distant ranges. To mark the occasion a small tea
Our mountains belong to all of us. The Right to Climb them and bask in their views that inspire awe and wonder is as old as the human genome. This long-established cultural tradition is under threat by a small group of bureaucrats determined to impose their way on the rest of the world. It is right to Climb because we have the Right to climb. If you don’t exercise your rights you lose them. Don't let petty nanny state bureaucrats take them away.