Olgas in the Outback - Australia

Kata Tjuta (also known as the Olgas) means many heads to the Australian Aborigines. This group of more than 30 rounded red masses of rock rises out of the desert outback in Australia’s Northern Territory. Some of the rocks are bunched close together with only narrow crevices between them. Others, rounded and polished by the wind, are spaced further apart. The highest is called Mount Olga and is 1500 feet tall.

Like their nearby neighbor Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta has been sacred to the Aborigines for centuries and is a key location in their legends about the Dreaming the time of creation. The Aborigines only permit certain views of Kata Tjuta to be photographed. The Aborigines identify Mount Olga as the home of the snake Wanambi who stays curled up in a waterhole on the summit during the rainy season. During the dry season he moves down to the gorge below. Wanambi also uses the various caves on Mount Olga. His breath is the wind that blows through the gorge.

As you view the distant Kata Tjuta beyond the trees, you can sense the presence of past and present Aborigines. But true to form, they can’t be seen unless they want to be seen.

 

When the huge slab of rock that is Kata Tjuta was being folded and faulted, vertical joints or fractures cracked through the rock. Water seeped down the cracks and over millions of years the rock eroded away - grain by grain, pebble by pebble, to form valleys and gorges that split the rock slab into blocks. Curved cracks called topographic joints formed on the surface of the blocks. Weathering and erosion wore away the rocks above the cracks to produce the rounded domes we see today. Kata Tjuta, the Anangu name for the collection of domes, means "many heads".