Day 6 Ayers Rock to Kings Canyon by Danny.

Before I start today I have to recap on the tail end of yesterday. 

While the rest of Yalara was waiting for the rain to pass, we decided to go out to the rock and see what it looked like. It was amazing. I've seen photos of it when it's raining but to see it for real was incredible, and we pretty well had it to ourselves.

The sun came out, and everything warmed up a treat. By the afternoon we ventured out to the Olgas and decided to do the trek less travelled - a 10 km hike through the Valley of the Winds. We didn't see anyone else for hours and it was awesome too.

The kids held up well and kept on plugging away over the rocks and trails, and got to swim in the water holes that the mornings cascades had left behind.  Bill jumped in first, the older girls waded and Adelaide couldn't wait to strip right off and jump in.

We didn't bring drinking water because we didn't think we'd be out there so long, but with every turn nature provided! It might have provided something to eat too, but Tilly reckoned she read something somewhere that something up here was poisonous. That put the wind up me.

It was 10k's up hill and down dale and the kids were very impressive. It occurred to me that Adelaide has now climbed The  Rock ( some of it ), walked up around and down Kings Canyon, and right through the Olgas - all at just 4 years of age! A bit of a trooper is our little free spirit.

It was nearly dark ( and the kids were nearly worn out) when a big storm blew up through the Olgas and it didn't leave us in any doubt why this was called " Valley of the Winds".  My feelings were mixed. On one hand the power of Mother Nature was exhilarating and it was all I could do to fight the urge to scream " I bought a jeep!" But on the other hand I couldn't help but contemplate the final words of wisdom from 'crisfloats' who built our flash accommodation -"never leave your awning left wound out and unattended"...

Bugger.

When we got back to Yalara, I was grateful the night was still and the awning was intact.  I grabbed a chair, sat under it and cracked a well earned beer. A wind storm blew up from nowhere and snapped one arm off the awning and the rest was left looking like it had been in a bar fight.  We now had a semi detached awning on the opposite side of the float, where there was no awning before.

Bugger.

This now brings me to today's blog.

I woke up this morning momentarily without a care in the world.  Then it dawned on me that I have furniture hanging off the float that ought not be there.  I tried to get out of bed which was made harder by a torn muscle in my neck.  I had a pain that was going to outlast religion.  This must have happened during, or after the beers I had trying to secure the awning. I knew the show had to go on, so I went outside to survey the damage.  It wasn't good.  It had more twists than a Hitchcock novel.  I grabbed a handful of light rope and ventured up the ladder - which was a feat in itself with a stiff neck - and walked across the roof to try and make sense out of the mess that used to be our awning.  I felt sorry for it that it hadn't reached its full potential in life - after all it had only been opened 3 times - but this was no time for sentimentality.  

As I wrestled with the broken framework I tried to tie it all together with the rope I had found in the toolbox, but until now I hadn't realised that the rope was hopelessly tangled in a big birds nest of knots. So as I stood upright on the wet and slippery roof surface some 3 meters off the ground doing my best not to slip, and with my stiff neck I tried to untangle the mess.  I looked like Steady Eddie doing Saturday night fever and soon realised that this would be better sorted out from the ground.

Back on terra firma I couldn't reach so I figured I'd drive the ute in and stand on the back.

Now the ute is bogged in the red sand.

Bugger.

This is the precise moment Caroline asks if she can take a photo, because it's my turn to write the blog today.  Through gritted teeth I smile for the shot (see below) and then contemplate exactly where I am about to throw a tantrum, and how I will get there (seeing as the ute is stuck).

 

 

Just then I hear the kids playing games and laughing in the float, and the world makes sense again.

We decide to go for a camel ride which is something none of us has ever done before, ( except Caroline thinks she has (Caroline wrote that bit - but I reckon if you've ridden a camel before you would remember it for sure - just saying!)). If you have never ridden a camel either it is kinda like riding a horse with a longer neck and a big hump on its back .... that makes funny noises. Ok, so it's actually nothing like riding a horse - it's kinda like riding ..... a Camel.

The ride was a real treat. It wasn't cheap but it wasn't a Gold Coast rip off either. They stopped the Camels in front of Uluru and took photos of us all - with our own cameras! No tourist shots here where you have to pay $50 a throw. Class act and I can't recommend the experience highly enough and the Camaleers were great guides too with terrific senses of humour. (Why do I feel the urge to yodel every time I read the word Camaleers? (Focus Daniel ...))

 

 

Bills Camel was called Murphy, Adelaide and I were on Darcy, Tilly and Jess were on Trigger (who recently won this years Camel Cup) and Em and Caroline were riding Cusko. Cusko was incline to want to take large chunks out of Japanese tourists, hence the Hannibal lecture outfit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got talking to management and LONGREACH might be playing at next years Uluru Camel Cup. A gig at the rock - that'd be pretty cool!

From there we went back to pack up camp and head out. I found myself momentarily staring at the broken awning  like that bloke off the colourbond ad, but I shook it off once I got the message that insurance had approved a new one in Darwin (no surprise that I am quite familiar with the process over the past 12 months!)

At this late stage of the afternoon we debated whether to head straight for Alice or try again for the Kings Canyon sunset we missed by a few minutes last year. We decided to make a charge for the Canyon and were determined to make the sunset this time. We missed it by a few minutes. This got me thinking about a definition some wise person once gave me of stupidity. They said "Stupid is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result". At least I think that's how it went, I can't really remember. Anyhoo, we'll give the Canyon sunset another crack next time.

Later in the night we got to witness a dingo shoot through with some tourists tea, the kids had a look at the constellations, and I got to watch Rod Dowsett perform, as he did last year, and then share a beer and a yarn with him. Good bloke.

As I type these last few lines it is nearly 11 pm, my family are asleep within touching distance, we are at the base of Kings Canyon in the great Australian Outback, and a lone dingo is howling loudly outside. Surreal is not enough to sum it up.

There is also one moth in the float and I have just about had enough of it head-butting the screen and fluttering around my nose, time for bed, good night.