More colourful rock

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- FOOD: Excellent ice cream.

- PEOPLE: Chattier tour group now they'd relaxed; Backpackers and interested locals in the club; Aboriginal people who can't drink in the bars wandering the streets VERY drunk.

- AREA: Long walk through the beautiful, layered rock of King's Canyon; pygmy koala...; pretty Garden of Eden pool; brand new and perfectly formed Yulara town; not so nice sports bar; cheesy club (the only one in Alice).

- WEATHER: Yes, more of this lovely hot sun


Thur 8th Sep: Had a lie in and got up at 6am. Then we spent the morning on a 8k walk around Watarrka (Kings Canyon). So very beautiful and detailed with many, many layers of rock forming this spectacular sight with its crevices and plateaus and bright colours. Vicky pointed out the trees with wrinkly skin and the pygmy koalas sitting at the top. What? Pygmy koalas? What the hell?.... Yes, she had a few of us going there but they were only those bloody toy ones that some tourist had stuck up there!
The walk through all the crevices and plateaus of the canyon took 4 hours and was quite steep at parts. The 'Garden of Eden' was really pretty but the water was shaded so hardly anyone got in.

The weather was boiling hot and so we felt we deserved our even bigger lunch when we got back before driving to Yulara town. This town was moved away from Uluru in 1985 as it was too close and it even had it's airport very close. It is a 'perfect' town with all the shops located around a square and each one labelled 'Ice Creamery' (the ice cream is GOOD here), 'Take away', 'Newsagent' etc! Very small and the buildings were all built to blend in with the surrounds and hidden from view.
We then had a long, painful drive back to Alice Springs but the Rolf Harris tape kept us going (or rather kept Vicky, me and Hitash going - everyone else was quiet!!).

We all met for dinner in a horrible sports bar type place with rude staff and watered down beer so went onto the only 'club'... full of backpackers and locals pulling the backpackers to the sound of cheesy tunes.
There were a few Aboriginal men drinking in there which surprised me as I'd found out that it's actually illegal for them to drink alcohol!!!! The Aboriginal elders made this rule and not the racist whites as they get so out of control when drinking alcohol and cause trouble! I would've thought even though alcohol has never been a part of their culture, that surely as the younger generations are getting more Westernised, they could just educate them better? The Aboriginals are not at all integrated into the white society as this rule ain't helping. It's really noticeable how there is such segregation between the groups and a lot of racism too.

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