Field of Light, Uluru, Australia

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While we were at Uluru in central Australia recently, we attended the Field of Light, an installation of some 50,000 slender stems crowned with frosted glass spheres. LED lighting illuminates the area from dusk. Lighted pathways led us on a 600 metre path through and among the lights which changed colour from time to time as we walked among them. The installation is the creation of Bruce Munro, a London artist, who visited Uluru in 1992. It has been very popular, with hundreds of people walking through the wonderland each night. Munro saw in his mind a landscape of illuminated stems that, like the dormant seeds in a dry desert, 'bloom' under the night sky, under a blanket of southern stars. The installation was solar powered with 36 solar panels powering 144 projectors. The lights took six weeks to install. 'Field of Light' could only be viewed by booking a tour. A bus took us to and from the area. This was cheaper than paying through the nose, so to speak, for a camel ride which was another choice on offer. We also didn't worry about the fancy dining option as we didn't want to take out a mortgage just to pay for a meal. Because of the danger of people tripping in the half-light, the use of tripods was forbidden making it very difficult to get effective photos. Vince held his camera as steady as possible against one of the few small trees in the area and managed a few nice shots. I thought I'd found him a lovely solid tree stump of about the right height to lean on but luckily before I got to it, it turned out to be a man bent over taking close-ups of the lights. I wonder what he would have thought to have had a camera perched on his back? If you search 'field of light' on Google you will see incredibly pretty photos of this very lovely installation.