Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia is set to unveil a one-of-a-kind light and sound show at Ayers Rock Resort in May, combining ancient Anangu storytelling with cutting-edge drone and laser light technology. Dubbed Wintjiri Wiru, meaning “beautiful view out to the horizon” in the local Anangu language, the show will bring to life a chapter of the Mala ancestral story and will be the first time a display of this magnitude has been performed on a regular basis anywhere in the world.
The show has been designed by world-renowned Media Architecture studio RAMUS and will bring the Central Desert to life with projections, lasers and lights shining on the spinifex and mulga, offering an immersive light and sound experience in the presence of Uluru. Over 1,000 drones will take flight each night to lift ancient images to the sky, accompanied by a soundtrack with traditional inma recorded with members of the local Anangu community and a narration in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara languages.
Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia has consulted closely with Anangu custodians of the Mala story to bring the Wintjiri Wiru experience to life with respect and in line with Anangu cultural protocols. The Anangu consultation group has advised on the visuals, narrated the story, and delivered the music. The show will take place on a sustainably-built platform with panoramic views of Uluru and Kata Tjuta and will feature artwork from local Anangu artist, Christine Brumby.
The Wintjiri Wiru show will be comprised of two shows every night from March until December, with one show per night in January and February. The signature experience will be the three-hour Wintjiri Wiru Sunset Dinner which includes welcome cocktails, gourmet dinner hamper, and the sound and light show, priced at AUD$385pp. A second show each evening, After Dark, will be a one-hour-long experience including light refreshments and the show, priced at AUD$190pp.
The Mala story is the first Indigenous story of its kind to be shared on this scale and is considered important Tjukurpa, a philosophy linking Anangu to the environment and ancestors. Tjukurpa stories contain important lessons about the land, rules for appropriate behavior, and are used like maps to explain the origins and structure of the universe.
Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia recognizes the ongoing connection of Anangu to the land, water, sky, culture, and community and pays homage to the ancient cultural heritage of the Anangu people. The Wintjiri Wiru show will be a testament to this rich cultural heritage and offer visitors a deeper spiritual connection to this special part of Australia.
For more information go to: www.ayersrockresort.com.au or call 1300 134 044.
About Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia: Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC) established to undertake tourism business on its behalf. Voyages offers unique experiences and cultural immersion in spectacular locations around Australia including Ayers Rock Resort in the Northern Territory and the Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre in Tropical North Queensland. Voyages works closely with local communities, respecting and supporting Indigenous culture and offering employment, training and business development opportunities to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
Photo Credit:
As custodians of the land, Anangu hold the Mala story from Kaltukatjara to Uluru. To share their story from Kaltukatjara to Uluru, RAMUS designed and produced an artistic platform using drones, light and sound to create an immersive storytelling experience.
The sun had set. It was a moonless night, but the intensity of the stars lit up the sky. It looked like a thousand candles squeezed onto a dark chocolate cake. There was no Big Dipper but the Southern Cross filled in admirably. I was in New Zealand’s Fiordland national park, the southern brother of Norway’s fjords, anchored for the night on Milford Sound.
Arriving at Milford Sound, the first thing I saw was Mitre Peak towering 5,500 feet (1676m) above the sound. It is the world’s highest peak rising directly out of the water.
Pohutu Geyser erupts on average twenty times a day… it should not be long now. My husband Rick and I patiently wait before the gigantic rock mound from which intermittent spurts of steam escape through a large central crevice. Mother Nature kindly sends a warning signal in that the smaller-scale Prince of Wales Feathers Geyser spews its scalding water first…and it does just that with a startling whoosh! Within ten minutes the ground rumbles and my breath catches as the mighty Pohutu sends voluminous columns of water higher and higher with thunderous firehose force to heights of 30m (100ft). Mega-gallons of spray glint in the sun, then fall in torrid cascades over the edge of the rocky mound. The jaw-dropping drama goes on for over a quarter hour, before the Pohutu giant is spent….for now.
We leave the geyser area for the Reserve’s Maori Weaving and Wood Carving Schools for an introduction to the artistic skills of the indigenous peoples of New Zealand. At the evening cultural show of song and dance the Maori women swing poi (balls on strings) with great finesse, and the men’s “haka” warrior dance is a roaring success with its resounding chants, vigorous movements and facial distortions of bulging eyes and protruding tongues.
Early the next morning we aim our rental car towards Rotorua District’s Wai-O-Tapu for the10:15 a.m. eruption of the Lady Knox Geyser. How does this occur at the exact same time daily? Well, at this site nature has a helping hand in Fred, the park ranger, who pours a little bag of organic soap into its funnel-like opening. He explains, “ The soap breaks the surface tension of cold water in the geyser’s upper chamber so that it mixes with the hot water below, releasing it to shoot to the surface.” Almost immediately the Lady Knox begins to bubble, froth, erupting to a height of approximately 12m – rather less melodramatic than Pohutu.
craters from volcanic activity eons ago. Champagne Pool and Artist’s Palette are perfect monikers for the bubbling 100°C pools, steaming fumaroles, and patches of dynamic reds, lime green, zinging yellow and chalk white produced by different mineral elements. Spectacular!
The next day’s two-hour scenic drive is through the Waitomo District of verdant valleys, fields of corn, grazing sheep and cattle. It boggles my mind knowing that underneath these hills are 300 known limestone caves. The abundance of limestone, which is composed of compressed marine life, is due to the area once being under the sea. We arrive at the Waitomo Visitor’s Centre to see some of the caves open to the public.
Before entering the Glowworm Cave, Hardie, our guide, gives us a 101 lesson on the lifecycle of the glowworm (arachnocampaluminosa). The female lays about 120 eggs, which hatch into larvae. The larvae build nests and put down sticky lines to trap insects for food, emitting a visible light from their tail to attract their prey (this bioluminescence is a reaction between chemicals given off by the worm and oxygen in the air); the hungriest glow the brightest. After 9 months in this pupae stage of glowing and growing, they morph into adults whose only function is mating and egg laying for survival of the species.
Ruakuri Cave is next; its cavernous entrance is likened to an enormous space station. We follow Angus, our guide, down a spiral ramp dotted with amber lights akin to alien orbs taking us15-metres below ground. A vast subterranean world spreads before us with delicate limestone formations in hues of pale pinks and soft gold; stalactites hang en mass from ceilings, stalagmites rise like sentinels from the cave floor, some meeting in the middle to form columns.
Kangaroo Island, or ‘KI’’, as it’s known locally, is more noted for what it hasn’t got than for what it has. Unlike mainland Australia, rabbits and foxes were never introduced, so the indigenous wildlife has less competition for survival.
Probably the best-known feature in the Park is the Remarkable Rocks. 
An unexpected feature is Kelly Hill Cave, a limestone grotto with a mind-blowing display of stalactites and stalagmites, including an extremely rare ‘fish-hook’ stalactite. This formation exists only in a handful of places, all in the Southern Hemisphere … and geologists are still trying to work out how it came about.