Another alarm morning. Holidays just don’t feel like holidays when the alarm has to go off, but given I don’t have an alarm on normal days, I guess it’s fair enough :). 6.20 Kaoru got up to have a shower and wash her hair, and then I had a shower. We ate some breakfast in the room and got ourselves organised, and then called a taxi about 7.15 to take us to the Britz depot up the road. That was something new – I had to remmeber to pay the guy after the trip!
We filled out the paper work and were taken to our “home for the next few days”, for a briefing. Nothing complicated – a Hi-Ace with high roof, 2 batteries, fridge, stove, etc. We went through everything, unpacked our suitcase so we could leave it with them (god knows there’s no space to store it!) and were on our way by 8.30. I dropped Kaoru off at the Coles to do some shopping, and then went back to the hotel to put the remaining things in the car, and check out. I went back to the Coles and familiarised myself with a few more features of the vehicle. Once Kaoru had finished shopping we put things in the fridge and were on our way out of Alice Springs by 9.45.
Our first stop was the “Old Gahn” engine on the side of the road. We took a few photos, and then drove another couple of kilometres to the famous “Welcome to Alice Springs” sign for some more photos. As we left another couple arrived and asked if we could take some photos of them, so we did, and then they took some of us, so that was good rather than having photos of just one or the other of us. We then started cruising.
Our plan was to drive and just stop whenever we saw something we wanted to take a photo of. We weren’t in any real rush, although we knew we had nearly 500km to drive for the day. The scenery was beautiful – it was constantly changing, and we kept seeing what *must* have been Ayers Rock :). We got to Erldanda(??) about 12.15 and filled up on petrol (at $1.99/litre). We had only used about 1/3 of a tank but this was going to be the cheapest petrol for a while. We also bought lunch (pies) and ate looking at the Emu’s.
Back on the road, we continued on to stop at (??? Springs???) to look at the aboriginal art museum. But it was a ghost “town” – either closed or out of business. There was a roadhouse there, with some basic accommodation (with a beautiful view of the mountain range) but nobody in site. So we pushed on.
I saw somebody in the middle of the road, who didn’t move as we got closer. “Here we go”, I thought, as I locked the doors (thank god for central locking). An aboriginal was waving me down. I stopped (in the middle of the road next to him) and wound down my window a crack. He pointed at the kids on the side of the road, said something which I didn’t really understand, and then went on to say something about needing money for petrol. I said “Sorry, don’t have any cash” and drove off, before anybody could come up behind or to the side of the vehicle. It’s such a foreign concept to not stop and help somebody in trouble.
We got to the turn off to Kings Canyon off the Lasseter Highway, and could see more people in the middle of the road. “Here we go again”, I thought, but as we got closer we noticed they were Asian. So we stopped at the corner to look around and take some photos. The guys were taking a photo of themselves in the middle of the highway with an Australian Flag on their backs. We had a chuckle together and got some more drinks from the back, and off we went again.
Another 150 or so KM and we made it to Kings Canyon. We went in and were more than ready for some exercise. We did the “Kings Creek Walk”, which was a “2km 1 hr round trip” walk along the river bed. It was amazing walking through the canyon, and hard to imagine it being full of water. We weren’t able to walk the last 50m to the lookout as it had been damaged in a rock fall some time ago. So we had some water and lollies, and walked back to the car.
It was only another 10km to the Kings Canyon Resort and Campground, where we were already booked in for the night. We “checked in” and got to our campsite. I got power to the vehicle and a beer from the fridge, Kaoru grabbed some sweets, and we walked out to the Sunset Viewing Platform. We were there just before 6.00, and stayed for about half an hour (sunset was 6.22). We then went back to the van.
Kaoru washed the dishes (not happy with how they were) and I got a few things set up. We had a table so we had a full spread of cheese and meat’s and dips and biscuits. It was cooling down outside but quite warm inside so we had vehicle open, but were also wary of any insects – we didn’t want them in the vehicle for the night! For dinner we had Japanese Curry and Rice, with Potato Salad and a green salad. After dinner Kaoru did dishes and I worked out how to set up the bed.
I had a CC and Dry and Kaoru had another Baileys, while we wrote up diaries. It had been a long and enjoyable day – we were glad we had managed to get the good walk in! So were were in bed not long after 9.30.