Cirrus@Austlit

'There are few places in Australia which rival Ayers Rock for sheer visual spectacularity. Justly, because of its starkness and beauty, it has become the major landmark of the fifth continent. Ayers Rock—or Uluru as its Aboriginal name is—is also probably Australia's largest sacred shrine, a visible embodiment of the Dreamtime. In recent years the round, chubby rock has become a major symbol, and target, of the nation's booming tourist industry—worth between five and fifteen million dollars in tourist revenue, as the book states—which in itself must have posed for its traditional owners no mean anguish, seeing hordes of tourists, women and children among them, year after year, day after day trampling all over it. As a belated redress, Aboriginal title to Uluru was finally acknowledged on 11 November 1983 by the Hawke government and a measure of control restored to the local community.'  (Introduction)