Hi Ken - don't worry about the comment from the above person. I think he belongs to this awful new breed of "tour guides" at Uluru who share the same oafish attitude towards visitors as do many of the park staff. In fact I saw one of these new breed of tour guides in action when I was in the park in June. I was doing part of the Mala Walk and was near the sacred site called Mala Puta. A tour group was just in front of me and had stopped in order for the tour guide to give them a politically correct lecture. Anyway, one of the tour group was trying to frame a picture of part of the Rock (not of the miniscule sacred site I might add) and was barked at by the tour guide. No photos, no photos. I walked past the tour guide and said to her, "that person wasn't trying to take a picture of Mala Puta" but the tour guide's response was ... "you're not allowed to take pictures anywhere near it". I felt like shaking my head in disdain but thought better of it and walked on. Then just a few minutes later I saw another tour guide yelling at tourists who were trying to take a picture in the vicinity of Kantju Gorge.

By the way Stephen, if you really believe the regulations in place at Uluru are about cultural protection, then you are incredibly naive. I suggest that you find yourself a copy of Charles Mountford's 1965 book "Ayers Rock, Its People, Their Beliefs and Their Art". In that book you will find plenty of pictures of the sacred sites which were done by Mountford in 1940 with the permission and full knowledge of those Anangu who were present. What is also most remarkable is that there are pictures of Anangu men at some of the women's sacred sites, such as Pulari and Taputji. Indeed, as Stanley Breeden noted in his 1994 book about Uluru, "Anangu confided in Mountford and allowed him free rein with his camera." So much for the made-up guff that is in Parks Australia material with its wording to the effect that "photographic and artistic images [of sacred sites] are also regarded as wrong and immoral." And you should also note what the prize-winning author and historian Barry Hill wrote in his 1994 book, to the effect that the filming and photographic guidelines were one of the things that Anangu had to learn about from the "white fella" in the years after Handback in 1985.

Lastly, might I add that it is not just Ken Duncan but many hundreds of photographers across this country who are deeply concerned by the ever-expanding censorship of the natural environment at Uluru. And there are many thousands of visitors to Uluru who come away disappointed because of the fact that there are signs everywhere about the park forbidding them from doing things which we can do in just about any other national park.