In Hive account@onethousand word's invitation to the red heart of Australia, she describes it as a red heart - not to climb or desecrate, as white Australia has done for a hundred odd years, but to walk around this monolith, for 'it has stories to tell and healing hands'. As part of an imaginative sequence of posts poetically evoking this iconic desert place on Hive.blog, she instructs us to 'let her wrap around your body and pulse her rhythm through your feet. Let her bring you into her groves and cast her cool hand across the places that are disconnected from this earth. Let her bring you back to yourself.'

It's an invitation to country I need to answer. It was on the itinerary for this year, at last - but like many dreams, it's been postponed due to the pandemic. Disappointing for us, but I imagine the rock a little relieved to have some peace and quiet for once. 294,000 international tourists visited in 2019, and including domestic travellers, over 1.9 million people made pilgrimage to this red heart.

'I feel the rhythm of the centre of Australia rise through my chest as I wait. Ready to watch waves of colour roll across this sky. The sun turns kaleidoscopes across Uluru as gold drops behind Kata Tjuṯa. I shift focus back to the red rock to watch the colours that lift from the horizon in bands. Always the same canvas that closes the day away like a giant eyelid. - Photo & text by Hive account@onethousandwords on Hive.

I have always keep the heart of Australia at the centre of my compass arm movements - the sea is my home of choice, the umbilical cord leading to water, not to sand. There is something quite frightening about desert places - all that heat, and red dust. But perhaps it's that Australian immaturity that has made me so reluctant - an unwillingness to truly step into what it means to live in this country. It's dark past casts shadows of shame on the brightness of being a resident in the so called Lucky Country, particularly as a white and privileged woman. Stepping onto country unequivocally 'other' and absolutely not owned by colonial descendants in any sense of the word is bound to force the need to face the work that really needs to be done to bridge the gap.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t been moved by the presence of ‘the Rock’. The stillness and silence in the heart of my country stirs something within each of us. - Hive account@methametheus: 'The Heart of My Country' - Read his post here on HIVE

But this monolithic rock is symbolic of reconciliation, in a way. As if to visit, learn and walk along it's base is a act of acknowledgement of something far, far older than white settlement on a sunburnt country, and will be here when we are gone. To visit the rock is to learn more about the culture that holds it sacred. The Anangu people walked here as long as 60,000 years ago, and are it's traditional owners. For them, it's a sacred place, and it should be a spiritual centre for all Australians - to feel a little of the reverence they feel would be a kind of empathetic, felt experience that allows us to respect the country on which we walk a little more. Honour it's first people a little more. Understand them more.

^{Photo Credit: Hive account@snooway on Hive.blog The many faces of Uluru}

It's not only the 'rock' either - it's Kata Tjuta, or as we used to know it as The Olgas - a series of rock formations smaller than their bigger cousin but no less spectacular. There are many hikes around the area that allow visitors to take in the full majesty of the area. I click in awe on the pins on Pinmapple, an interactive online map linked to the HIVE blogging platform, reading the blogs of people who were lucky enough to go there, and dream. A thousand dollars might get us there, either by flying from Melbourne once the borders re-open, or petrol money to fill the tank a few times to travel 2,366 km from our doorstep in southern Victoria. I dream of sleeping on the top of the Landrover, watching the stars whirl overhead.

^{Photo credit: Hive account@lordnigel on Hive.blog}

Like many places in Australia, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is no longer awash with international visitors, and may be for some time. Visitors to the state must quarantine at their own expense for two weeks, and international flights no longer land in this country unless for repatriation purposes. We could not go currently if we tried - Victorians are currently unable to cross borders.

But still, one day I will drop a pin on Pinmapple.com and wax lyrical about walking on this sacred country, enticing others with my story so they might walk around it's base too, holding palms to the red rock as an act of worship.

'Have You Been Here' is a travel community on HIVE. You can download their app here and connect with other travellers. You can find where in the world other HIVE bloggers have travelled by exploring the map on your desktop at Pinmapple here. Drop a pin anywhere on the map to generate a code to add to your blog so that others might find it, and get paid in HIVE, exchangeable for your local currency. Referral link for the platform below! Pinmapple is also cucurrently holding a writing competition - this is my entry to the Pinmapple If I had $1000 Contest