Day 19 & 20: 2 Days - 1 night trip to Kings Canyon & Urulu.

Day 19 & 20: 2 Days - 1 night trip to Kings Canyon & Urulu.

Day 19

I will start with last night. As I announced we went to have dinner in Bojangles. The place is an American/western bar, with decoration with skulls of animals, boots hanging from ceiling, and a couple of interesting things:

1st There are cameras in the bar which Breakfast live in internet what is happening in www.bossaloon.com.au

2nd if I would have set an id, you would have being able to buy me beers.

Anyway, I chose camel pie for dinner. Camel tastes like beef. Then we had few drinks there, Cheryl , from the Kakadu Tour  join us.

In the end what was going to be a quick dinner was not such and I end up going to bed by 12, in a dorm of 8, again on the top mattress.

I slept very little, I woke at 4:15, to repack and get ready for 5:10 start. Unfortunately the driver was sick so we started about 35-40 min late the already busy agenda as they have to change the Tour Guide.

1st day of the Tour is Kings Canyon and then sleeping in a camp by Urulu, where I have the choice of bush camping or tend. In Cairns I was advice to do bush Camping. It will depend on the weather.

 

The Tour is fairly full. 3 girls from Denmark from the previous tour are in this tour again. There is going to be lots of time in bus today and tomorrow, so I took a seat by the Tour guide which made travelling more interesting.

 

First stop of the day was Kings Canyon. In the way there we were able to see a bit of the fauna here , kangaroos , emus, an eagle that was eaten by the road that  we almost hit, a dingo. But what we mostly saw were dead kangaroos by the side of the road, being hit by cars, we saw 7 or 8 of them.

In Kings Canyon we had a 6 km walk before lunch. Kings Canyon had a few of good shots, but didn't meet the expectations that some people had put on it. The Canyon was form by earthquake and it was interesting to see how some of the photos slow that, flat cracks in the rock.

 

After Lunch we started our way to Urulu. 3+ hours almost non stop to try to get there by sunset. It looks like the Dracula film, when everyone were going to the castle before the sun would go down and trying to get there before Dracula would wake up.

 

We arrived on time, the look-up point is just next to the camping area. We arrived with about 20+ minutes to spare, and of course after the sunset photos, we had dinner, an aussie BBQ with kangaroo, camel sausages, marinade beef and salad selection. After today I think that I only need to try buffalo before I go to Spain.

 

I decided to sleep outside, under the south hemisphere starts, which are quite different to north. I am not an expert but the only constellation I could recognize was Orion.

Tomorrow we have to be up at 4 am so we can go to the sunrise side of Urulu. So we have to be in the bus, everything packed by 4:55 am

 

Day 20

 

I woke up at 3:30 am, with the good piece of news that the moon was finally outs so we could see a sky full of starts. We could see clearly the milky way, the southern cross, a galaxy in the south, and either Saturn or Juniper near Orion.

 

By 4 we" jump out" from the sleeping bag, packed everything, had breakfast and we went to see Urulu at sunrise.

Then we went for a walk around "the  red rock".  I decided to  respect aborigine laws and not do the climbing, also I didn't have time to do both walks anyway. So I did the "Base walk" , 10k walk around Urulu, giving me oportunity to shoot many photos . Maybe some would be ok, but one thing is clear, I will need to work with them in selecting the best "shots", since including the submarine photos I am already in the 2500+ so far, and I still have the great Ocean Road trip.

 

After Urulu, we went to Kata-Tjuta. Another rock formation 20 km away. This time is nota a  single "rock" like Urulu, it is a combination if various smaller  "rocks", as high as Urulu. We did the small 1 hour walk, which was about that we could do before lunch. We didn't have the choice, the other one was 2.5 kms. Which we didn't have time especially at middle of the day.

 

After lunch we started a 5 hours aprox to Alice Springs. Hopefully tonight I would be able to rest, because after so many days on tour, trips, getting up very early, Packing unpacking, hours on the bus, I am starting to be very tired.