Street View’s latest adventure takes us to Uluru, the imposing ancient rock in Australia’s Uluru-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. Formerly known as Ayers Rock, the location is deeply sacred to the Anangu people, who’ve lived there for more than 30,000 years.
In a video (above) launching the new content, Northern Territory Tourism’s Lindsey Dixon, who helped to capture some of the imagery, explained how the special site “tells [the Anangu people’s] creation stories through different features in the rock, which are passed down through story and song and dance. For us to be able to experience it is really generous of them.”
The rock stands at 348 meters (1,142 feet) high, and has a total circumference of 9.4 kilometers (5.8 miles). “While visually and geologically extraordinary, the physical features of Uluru hold a deeper meaning for its traditional owners,” says Google Australia’s Jason Pellegrino.
One of those traditional owners, Sammy Wilson, says he considers Uluru “as home … when I see it I think of all the things I believe in. For us it’s a living thing, it’s a living keeper of our culture, and if it wasn’t we’d be lost.”
The new content took two years to collect and involved Google working with Anangu Traditional Owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Parks Australia, and the Northern Territory Government.
The beautiful Uluru imagery was captured using Google’s 15-lens, 40-pound Trekker camera, the same portable backpack system Street View used for virtual voyages to other fascinating places such as the Amazon rainforest, the top of Japan’s Mount Fuji, and the volcanic Marum crater on the Vanuatuan island of Ambrym.
Google’s cameras have even toured the world’s largest passenger plane, looked out from the world’s tallest building, and gone polar bear spotting in Manitoba, Canada.
