Today we are off to Kings Canyon. Again I was blown away. I can't understand why Uluru is the most famous when KT and KC are even more impressive! We again climb up the steep rocky incline to the top and spend 4 hours walking around the top of the canyon, stopping to eat rice Krispy chocolate bars half way along to take in the awesome views. I'm struggling to find more adjectives for how amazing this Outback scenery is... Keeping an eye out, we start to spot shell fossils and age old ripple markings from when the canyon was under water, it's really hard to imagine this massive desert structure miles under the sea.
Lying down on our fronts, looking over the edge, we spot hats and water bottles that have taken the fall to the bottom. I'm just glad Anders' mum isn't here to see him casually sit over the side with his feet swinging. His gf, Louise, didn't look too happy about it either...
Kings Canyon is also an opportunity for learning. Angus teaches us how to make a Bush bandaid from the sap of a plant (also used as a traditional aboriginal punishment where they temporarily blind someone by putting it in their eyes before sending them out into the bush to find their way back... Delightful ). Comedy moment of the day? Watching a group of teenagers be persuaded that the minute toy Kualas clipped on to a tree for jokes are real baby koalas... These things are smaller than my hand... Gotta love the gullible.
Managed to get this golden photo on 'pride rock' (we'd all got a bit into 'I just can't wait to be King' on the way over..) - and can't beat a good cringey photo op. I put the crazy dazed look down to dehydration.
KC is our final stop sadly before starting our 5 and a half hour drive back to Alice. But what a finish. Made even better by the full English we have back at the campsite! Grease grease grease. And delicious it was too :D
On the way back we stop back at the camel farm so that the two English girls could have the camel ride they missed on the way up, giving us another opportunity to see the other animals they had there - kangaroos, emus and a pet dingo!
Finally we take a pit stop at an aboriginal art gallery. Again, they remain cagey about what all the paintings mean but we understand that the colourful dots and shapes all depict the local land and the didactic stories told there in the aboriginal communities. A line with two lines splayed out at the top means kangaroo (because that's the mark they leave in the sand when they sit and rest their tale), a U shape means person. When we ask a woman what it means specifically though, she's not having any of it - either she doesn't want to say or, what we are inclined to believe in this particular case, that it's just a really beautiful painting...
Back in Alice we all get ready for dinner and an early night. Somehow though it's quickly 1.30 in the morning and we are still pulling shapes on the one dance floor in Alice Springs. A bottle of wine each and a few tequila shots later and we know we are in for a rough morning the next day but what a finish to some of the best four days I've had in a long time. So happy right now.
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