Scenes of jubilation rung out at Uluru on Friday evening as the ban on climbing the rock came into effect.
Uluru-Kata Tjuta Ranger Lynda Wright and Chair of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Council Sidney James clasped hands and celebrated in front of the sign that announced climbing would be closed to tourists.
It came after a final scramble that saw an estimated 10,000 extra tourists visit the rock ahead of the deadline.
Traditional owner Nelly Patterson said: Today I’m really happy! No more climbers. Close it!” according to one reporter at the scene.
From Saturday, Uluru will remain off-limits to visitors, exactly 34 years after the land was handed back to traditional owners.
The ban sparked frenzied scenes at the landmark for several weeks, with scores of visitors queuing from dawn.
On Friday morning, wild weather lashing the Red Centre closed the climb, with rangers forced to shut down the chain trail to the summit.
The climb was scheduled to open at 7am local time on Friday but authorities deemed conditions too dangerous, with winds lashing the western face of the rock.
But after reassessing the climb, rangers reopened the chain trail to frantic tourists who desperately ran towards the rock in a final bid to reach the top.
While long lines of visitors tried to scale the landmark before the ban, each had ignored a single sign at the base of the rock.
The sign, which says “Please don’t climb”, details why stepping foot on Uluru disrespects the Traditional Owner.
“Uluru is sacred in our culture,” the sign continued. “It is a place of great knowledge. Under our traditional law climbing is not permitted.
“As custodians, we are responsible for your safety and behaviour. Too many people do not listen to our message. Too many people have died or been hurt causing great sadness. We worry about you and we worry about your family.”
“That sign has been there for years — unfortunately mostly ignored,” one person said.
“It’s on my bucket list to one day visit Uluru but climbing it has never been on the list. I can emphasise with the traditional owners because I know I would be upset at people climbing over my church,” another added.
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Indigenous academic Marcia Langton declared that those who climbed Uluru had “defiled this sacred place” and that a “curse will fall on all of them”.
Ms Langton’s words were contained in a Twitter message responding to a video posted yesterday showing hundreds of people lining up to do the climb at 7am.
The controversial ban is the result of a unanimous vote by the board of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in 2017.
Uluru is considered to be a place of spiritual significance by its indigenous custodians, the Anangu people, who have pleaded with tourists not to climb it for many years.
There had been a sharp spike in the number of people arriving to hike up the monolith, with a number of photos showing lengthy lines up the trail going viral.
On Thursday, footage emerged showing furious climbers lash out at a couple who tried to skip the long line and climb the rock without using the safety chain.
However, the defiant pair continued to scale the rock, and skip the enormous queue of climbers clinging on to the chain that travelled up the sacred landmark.
“You can’t push in front of us,” one man yells out to the couple. “On the chain!”
Like many Australians who know the landmark simply as “the Rock,” Jeff Lis regards the climb as a birthright. The 52-year-old and his lifelong friend Stefan Gangur, 51, drove from Melbourne on the southeast coast to Australia’s so-called Red Centre.
“I’ve got some pretty strong views on it personally. I was born in Australia, it is part of my culture and ancestry as much as anyone else’s,” Lis, who is not an indigenous Australian, said at Uluru.
Sammy Wilson, who chaired the board that banned the climb, described the pending prohibition as a cause for celebration. Wilson is a member of the Anangu tribe who are Uluru’s traditional owners.
“If I travel to another country and there is a sacred site, an area of restricted access, I don’t enter or climb it, I respect it,” Wilson said. “It is the same here for Anangu. We welcome tourists here. We are not stopping tourism, just this activity.”
According to the BBC, only 16 per cent of visitors to Uluru actually climbed it in 2017, when the upcoming ban was first announced, but that number has surged as the deadline drew nearer.
In fact, the ABC reports there were an extra 10,000 visitors to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park per month in the six months leading up to the climb’s closure.
The climb was established in 1964 on the steep western face of the rock, and from October 28, the chain handhold that guided tourists up the rock for decades will be dismantled.
From Saturday onwards, heavy fines of up to $10,000 will be introduced for anyone who ignores the new law.
Over the decades, dozens of people have died while climbing Uluru for a range of reasons, including falls, dehydration and health issues.
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