Touchdown!

Thursday, July 30, 2015
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Northern Territory, Australia
Touchdown!

Ten degrees this morning at Kings Canyon (minus 3 at Alice according to the news tonight so THAT was well timed)!

I have decided that I may have to count my fingers after dining with GG! Breakast this morning was weet bix, followed by toast and marmalade then you could hear the gears grinding and see the thought processes ticking over…what now? Ahhh, the leftover charred remains of last night's snags! I ate my toast in amazement! Lol .

We packed up reasonably quickly as we wanted to do the canyon rim walk before our drive to Uluru. The walk was very nice, very steep to start and a lazy breeze up top, there were a couple of groups of people doing guided tours and quite a few out and about. The canyon is very scenic the cliffs very impressive. The rock formations are varied and the colours are something else. We took just a tad over two hours to do the walk. We took quite a few photos and chatted to quite a few people.

I was chatting to a girl who came from Belgium, she spoke Flemish, French, German and English (the latter very well too)! We walked for about 5 minutes and had a lovely chat!

I drove back towards the Lasseter Highway and GG had a little shuteye. This stretch of road must have some special characteristics as I slept on the way in on the same road.

It was good to get back to the car, I was a bit footsore . Off we headed to Uluru and Mount Connor formed a tasty entrée as we drove along. It too, is a sizeable chunk of rock!

We refuelled and ate at Curtin Springs, a spot with an interesting story to tell. It’s 2,028,960 acres in the old lingo, was started in 1956 and is a Wayside stop, a property that offered passing travellers sustenance and support. The fuel price wasn’t as bad as Kings Canyon, but not much better! I thought, despite freight costs that $13.50 for a toasted sandwich, $16.00 for a plain burger and $7.50 for a serve of chips may have been taking advantage of the location just a tad!

It was a bit kitschy in some ways, historic in others and very unlike any of the other roadhouses we’ve stopped at…and not necessarily in a good way.

Back on the road GG drove whilst I tried, with the benefit of paracetamol, to shake a headache I’d carefully cultivated all morning!

Thar she blows! That was G’s somewhat less than original way of letting me know the rock had appeared on the horizon . It is an impressive sight. We checked in, set up, had a beer and decided that it was a nice arvo for a sunset viewing so off we went. A three day pass to the National Park costs $25.00 so now we’re set for our exploration tomorrow and maybe the next day.

Dinner was the first thing on GG’s mind after sunset so I just stayed a safe distance away whilst the maestro of the reconstituted meal do his thing!  So here I sit, watching Lethal Weapon on telly, sipping my bourbon and thinking hey, I saw the rock today, something I have long really wanted to do. I am really grateful to my mad mate GG, who I really "pay out" on and who has many more endearing qualities than perplexing ones (!) I wouldn’t be here doing this if he wasn’t such a great friend.

I’ll try, Internet connections permitting, to upload some of the photos so check back!
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