Uluru & Kings Canyon

We drove to Uluru on Monday & difficult to get a park as many people there climbing the Rock & wandering around. We had a picnic coffee while watching the very steep climb being invadaded by people from all age groups. Spoke to an English girl a few days later & she had ruined her tights by coming down on her behind!

We drove on around & quite different looking the further we went. Found a much quieter car park & covered some of the base walk. Very cold in the shadows & pleased to find the sun again. We drove to a sunset viewing area which we had to ourselves & had our picnic lunch with champagne courtesy of John & Sue. 

Later that night we did a $35 per person bus trip to see The Field of Lights. It was very well done but certainly not worth paying the extra $200+ to include dinner & spend more time there. The next morning we headed out from Uluru & back to the turn off to Kings Canyon & a further 170 klm's which took us to 303 the day. The caravan park was quite large & packed every night of our three night stay. 

Wednesday morning we drove to the canyon & decided not to scale the steep slope leading up to the rim so followed the path along the bottom . It was not as good as we had been told & we were all a little disappointed so returned to the car to have a picnic coffee. We heard someone repeatedly calling out from the rim & turned out to be a father calling for his " lost " son. The wandering child had come down by himself & was too scared to to face his parents until a nice American lady informed them he was safe

                                       

Thursday was very cool & cloudy so we caught up on a few jobs & packed up ready to move on next day to Erldunda for an overnight stay. Friday morning was a chilly 11 degrees for our drive & decided to stop at the end of the 170 klm's to take a photo at the turnoff & discovered we had a flat tyre on the caravan! In ten years of owning a van it was a first so took awhile to get it sorted but Allan was happy to have the big jack I'd talked him into buying 18 months ago. It is also the jockey wheel so a dual purpose made the cost more bearable.

The highlight of the drive until then was seeing 4 camels & 5 wild brumbies. We arrived at Erldunda to find the wind not so cold & could enjoy the sun for awhile. Allan & John both washed the grime off the cars & we left early on Saturday morning for Alice Springs which was 200 klm without a spare tyre but made it safely. We pulled into a Beaurepairs & they fitted a new tyre & the spare went back into it's usual place all for a very reasonable charge. All good . Love Allan & Bev.