Kings Canyon and Farewell Northern Territory - Kings Canyon, Australia
Kings Canyon, Australia
Poor little Amber has had a high temperature for the last 4 days, so we decided she was not up for walking Kings Canyon. Anthony, Max and Tam set off yesterday not long after 9 am and we did not see them till around 3 pm. They said the Canyon was beautiful but that Ormington George in The West Macdonnell ranges was similar and more spectacular in its landscape. So, I don't feel so bad that we missed it- although those 1000 steps up the canyon would have been a good workout. The rim walk around the canyon was full of wildlife. Tammi in her Steve Urwin ways, stalked a large camilion like lizard and managed to capture it, much to the amazement of Max and Dad. They walked through a maze of rocks with beautiful colours and textures on the rocks reminiscent of it being a sea bed millions of years ago. They went to its Garden of Eden which was a hidden oasis in the middle of the desert with 400 year old cycads- they viewed spectacular scenery at the lookout and the kids counted the steps as they went- they reckon there is about 1,200 steps. Caravaning can be great and now is a great time to be travelling as the caravan parks are near empty, but today we shared the site with a German family who clearly had no idea about the disposal of grey and black water because they put it down the drain right under our vans' window. This then proceeded to block up the pipes under our site and the odours came back up the pipe on the other side of the van. I closed all the windows and put the air con on, but by the time Anthony arrived back from the pool, the smell was stagnant and revolting outside the van. Simply put, it couldn't be stomached. So we had to advise reception and next minute we had the maintenance crew working on it with electric eel to try and fix it. We were all a bit unlucky though as they were unsuccessful. Whatever they did do, did manage to mask the smell enough to be able to open our windows again thank goodness, however the next morning a digger turned up outside our door and they had to dig up the pipe in order to fix it. Even if the Germans were ignorant about where to dump their waste, it amazes me that they would dump it right under our open window- that's the one down side to caravan parks. Anthony has a smile from ear to ear at the moment, he's looking down at his stomach as I write this. He says he thinks his muffin top is starting to vanish from all our walking and his 6 pack may be coming back- ha ha ha! We've just had lunch at a cute place in the middle of nowhere called Mt Ebenezer Roadhouse. They were a friendly bunch, Kev and Ken, whom looked like a couple of retired bikies - stocky with shaved heads and tats all over. Cal got talking to them only to discover that Kev used to work at Barrow Creek pub (home of the "break down") with Tony (the guy at the pub the that helped us) - what a small world! He also told us a few stories about Tony... ...Kev enlightened us to the fact that Barrow Creek is where Falconio's girlfriend made it to, to report her rape and her partner's murder. He told us the location of the murder was 11.2kms further north up the road. Anthony and I just looked at each other with raised eyebrows and said in unison - "That's just where we broke down!!!" And what's even freakier, minutes before we broke down we were discussing where the Falconio murder might have been. After travelling 10,000kms and for this to happen exactly in the same place...ohhhh - talk about eerie! Sometimes the unexpected makes a journey all the more interesting. Today ends our journey in the Northern Territory. We are currently heading south to the South Australian border. We have travelled the Northern Territory for 2 months now and boy- what a fantastic journey- we are feeling quite sad to say goodbye to it today. It has such immense beauty and given us so much enjoyment and we have taken it all in- and it's right here in our own backyard. I can't believe it has taken Cal and I over 40 years to discover it. Goodbye Northern Territory and thanks for looking after us. We will miss your red dirt, rich colours, your vast wildlife, your stunning landscape and we will forever appreciate green grass.