Day 3: Side Adventure Part 2 08/08/2020

Hello beautiful sunrise and fantastic camp shower! I woke up at sunrise and, wanting to let Paul get some more sleep, I sat in the car until he woke up. By that stage my hands were absolutely freezing and felt like they were on fire when they went into the hot shower. That was a shower I didn’t want to get out of. The overnight low was 1 degree, so it was still pretty cold. The shower was hot, had great water pressure and wasn’t timed – the perfect combo for a campground shower!We drove out to Uluru and walked around the base. I had completely not appreciated the grandeur and stark beauty before I saw it in real true life. I loved reading all the stories about the different areas of the rock and why they were important to the aboriginals and imagining them sitting in the various caves grinding seeds to make flat bread or roasting meat over fires that blackened the ceilings or the fellas just hanging out together keeping an eye on the adolescent boys (“bush boys”) who were learning how to become men.  Apparently at one of the waterholes, when a mob of emus came to drink the aboriginals would hide, wait for them to leave and then kill the last one. They did that so the emus wouldn’t be afraid to drink at that spot, they’d just wonder where their mate had disappeared to!It’s really lovely that the climb has been removed and almost hasn’t left a trace. All the poles that were cemented into the rock have been sheared off and the tops painted ochre. The only small trace is a white line from people’s feet that will disappear over time. I imagined how dark a day it must have been for the aboriginals when we started drilling into their rock to fasten ropes to help us clamber all over their sacred place.From Uluru we zoomed off to Kata Tjuta. Unfortunately we had about two seconds there before we had to leave to get back to Kings Canyon for the night. I love love love those rocks. They’re my absolute favourite and I so wish we had made the time to spend a day walking around them. That’s on our list for next time we’re back in this lovely land.We made it back to Kings Canyon about an hour after sunset. I find it pretty stressful driving in that gloaming period when the sun’s gone down but there’s still too much light for your headlights to be of any use, particularly if you’re driving west which we were. Visibility is low and you have to hope no creatures choose that exact time to jump out. We did have to brake for a flock of camels crossing the road. They took their time making their way across and then ran off as soon as they got to the other side!
We found our spot, set up camp, cooked dinner and washed up all in the dark by head torch trying not to make too much noise because the people in a camper nearby had gone to bed shortly after we arrived.