Ayers Rock to Kings Canyon

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Firstly, thanks to everyone for their great comments and good wishes. Its really good to hear from you all. We will get around to individual emails at some point, but the mobile broadband plan that we chose is fairly restrictive on time (we are on a budget now that we are unemployed) and so by the time we load the travelblogs, there is not much left over every month.

We left Ayers Rock campground at 8.50am on 5/7 (seems the ‘hares’ are rubbing off on us!) for the 293km drive to Kings Canyon. Oh, forgot to tell you in the last blog that at Ayers Rock we had a disaster…….Wes ran out of beer!!!!! He went to buy some at the resort bottle shop, but after the guy at the bar put the 6 pack of VB into the bag and asked him to hand over $22.00, he lost his thirst. (Never thought I’d see that day!)

We had only intended to stay overnight at Kings Canyon - just long enough to see the Canyon and do the Rim Walk, but we got a site with a view over the desert to the escarpment surrounding the canyon and decided there and then that another night was needed to take advantage of such a nice spot. We had a lazy afternoon and joined in with the other campground residents (hares) for cocktail hour to watch the sunset.

We were told to make sure that we left no shoes or the like outside at night because the dingoes come and take them. I woke to hear them howling outside and remembered that I had left my sunglasses on our camp table, so I got up to go and get them just in case, at which time Wes woke up - and because he didn’t hear the howling, he thought I was over-reacting and so for the next two days he taunted me with “Oh no, the dingo’s got my sunglasses!” (Aka Lindy Chamberlain - ‘Oh no, the dingo’s got my baby) Ha Ha - not. Anyway needless to say, they didn’t get my sunglasses, but they did continue to howl periodically, not that the snoring bear sleeping next to me ever heard them.

The next morning we drove to the Canyon which is about 8km drive from the campground and did the rim walk. Compared to Ayers Rock, the initial view of the canyon from the base of the carpark was a bit ho-hum, but the view from halfway around the rim walk changed our opinion. We really enjoyed the 6km walk- there was such a variety of scenery - it took us about 3 hours, with a few steep climbs. Then it was almost beer o’clock so we headed back to camp. It was too cold to stay outside after 6.00pm, the overnight temps were still around 0°.

Its now Friday 7/7 and we headed for Alice Springs. We stopped at the Erldunda Roadhouse for lunch (which was where we stayed for the night before going to Ayers Rock) and we saw a sign wanting a Refrigeration Mechanic - which we happened to have on board. Time was a factor though, because we were trying to get to Alice Springs to collect our first mail before 5pm so that we could deal with it over the weekend and it was now 12.45 with a 2 hour drive left. Wes found the manager and had a look at the large display fridge - it was just an electrical fault and short of refrigerant and he managed to fix it quite quickly, although getting paid took much longer as the Manager wanted to have a yarn. We left at 2.30 and made it to the Post Office only to find that it was closed that day due to the Alice Springs Show holiday!! Bugger. Off to the caravan park.

Have done a separate blog for Alice Springs itself.

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Photos

View from Caravan to Kings Canyon Escarpment
You can see why we decided to longer with this view.

Overlooking Kings Canyon from Rim Walk
Have a look at the size of the trees to get a perspective on the size of rock face.

Comments

[Birdy]

LOVE the blog
Hi guys. Just wanted to say that I am loving reading your blog. It's a great way to stay in touch with where you are at. Photos are great too. And missing you heaps!

[Dominic]

Old Farts
Hey Wes, even though your 40, you must still bring down the average age of the travllers your hanging out with to around 75.... speak to you soon Dom