Day 13: Yulara - Kings Canyon

Oly woke me at 5:30AM and asked if I wanted to get up to go to Uluru to try and catch the sunrise or would I prefer to stay where I was, the later was more appealing. I spent the next few hours rolling about in the back of the van trying to sleep while Oly drove.

We set off for Kings Canyon where we would be staying for the next two nights. On the way is Mount Conner (Artilla), the third of the great monoliths and home of the Ice Men. By now I am sure they have melted in this heat.

The camp ground we checked into for two nights turned out to be the wrong one, there is one 4km from Kings Canyon and we were still 36km away... "no dramas" it was beautifully quiet here, apart from the 18 - 30 tour bus, we almost had the place to ourselves.

They had some amazing lizards that reared up and ran on their back legs like a cartoon character. They were so quick Oly had loads of trouble getting a good running picture of them.

There was also a slightly confused magpie, that we nicknamed Harold, that repeatedly jumped from Henry's side mirror to window, back to side mirror. This went on for hours and at first the window was closed. We tried covering over the stuff we had on the seats in case it had taken its fancy, we tried feeding it bread, giving it water, we opened the window to stop it hurting itself. It was very persistent! Hours later I had a brainwave and covered the mirror. The magpie spent 10 minutes looking around, flew off and never came back.

A storm had been threatening to begin. It arrived around 5PM and for the rest of the night we had thunder, lightening, hot bursts of wind (make up your own mind on that one!) and 8 drops of rain.

We still enjoyed the change from hot, sticky, sweaty, close heat to the anticipation of a refreshing, soaking wet downpour, even if it never came.

The evening was spent sitting on Henry's step, massaging each others weary shoulders, watching the lightening. Oly set up his camera on the tripod but unfortunately which ever way he pointed the camera the lightening appeared somewhere else.

We slept with the side and back curtains open so we could watch the storm, it didn't help with the heat but it took our mind off it for a while.

Em

Miles: 264km
Time: 3 1/2 hours
Location: Click Me!
Temp: 42c
Music:
Soul II Soul - Keep On Movin'
Gilles Peterson - In Brazil Da Hora
Audio book - Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer