We woke to blue skies, partly cloudy with no rain for the
first time since getting to Uluru. We missed sunrise again! We had slept past
it today for once. We had eaten the last of our groceries last night. We packed
up and checked out and stored our luggage for the 12:30pm bus pickup. We walked
over to the Town Centre for breakfast. Things were not completely recovered
from last night’s torrential rains. You could see that people were out and may
have been for hours cleaning up, mopping, shoveling, pumping. We shopped while
we were there. Since we’ll be in a bus during lunchtime, we bought things we
could take to eat on the bus this afternoon. In the IGA we learned they had
been flooded last night. They were open though and cleaning up and restocking
and had all the shelves on risers off the floor. The guy who took our luggage
said his bathroom had flooded. We were glad last night to be on the 3rd
floor after walking through ankle deep water that was coming in first floors.
We visited the AAT Kings counter to ask about the cancellation letter. We
wanted to know the amount of money they were refunding so we’d know what to
talk to GSR about. She said that it was $144AUD pp and had already been
processed to the agents. When we got back to the hotel to await our bus Clay
called GSR and they checked our record to find there was a note about needing
to issue a refund to us. I think the answer was if you haven’t gotten a refund
on your payment card in a month call back.
Our tour today is AAT Kings but I’m not sure how it is
broken out. The whole thing is called 4 day Kata Tjuta, Uluru & Kings Canyon (AK48S). It has been broken out into a lot of segments that I’ve been
linking to here in the blog but today there are no tour codes on the itinerary.
So I don’t have any idea what we’re paying for this night and 2 days, but I am
sure it is too much. We’d never have come of our own volition. We got our first
really awful driver/guide today. He is rude and confrontational. It was a long
ride. We keep him tomorrow too. We learned that a couple who has been with us
since Adelaide was also on Sirena for 34 days with us. I don’t remember seeing
them then but there you go, it was a lot of people. Our first stop was for 20
minutes at Curtin Springs. Second stop was a literal crossroads. It was called
the Angus Downs stop where we exchanged some passengers who were going to Alice
Springs for those going to Kings Canyon. I think that will happen to us
tomorrow. We saw some camels today but they were being farmed. Our driver told
us that because of the past 18 months of rain that there is so much water and
the plants are so lush all over that the animals don’t stay near the roads for
moisture and green things anymore. I guess that explains it.
We are here to visit Watarrka National Park. We are overnighting at Kings Canyon Wilderness Lodge which appears as a tiny wide spot at perhaps the end of this road. It reminds us of the National Park Lodge areas of the American West as does the landscape, particularly of southern Utah. Our arrival consists
of viewing sunset tonight on Carmichaels Crag with a hundred other people
packed on a little deck. First sunset in days though so happy for that. We saw
lightning off towards Uluru in the distance so it looks like they were getting
the follow up storm that was predicted. Oh well. The other part of our visit
here is to hike tomorrow morning. Light rain is predicted. I only hope it runs
off the flies. The driver took us to the trail head this afternoon to get
commitments from each of us as to the hike we’d take. I’d rather take none, but
committed to the 1 hour level walk with the driver. Clay committed to the one
that brought us here which is 6km and 3 hours called a rim climb. The 3 hour
climb leaves at 6:30am. We get breakfast here that starts at 6am. My 1 hour
walk leaves at 8:30am. We all come back to the hotel at 10am to have an hour or
so to shower, change, pack and check out before reloading the bus for Alice
Springs. I am sorry to report there is no free Internet here and no cell signal
so I can’t post this until tomorrow. Sorry I didn’t warn you yesterday but I
didn’t find out until we got here and it was too late to post a warning.
We walked down the street about a half mile to a BBQ &
Bar and had 2 $30 burgers. Each came with a quarter of a baked potato and a
salad bar. It was OK but there was loud music that was overwhelming. We saw
distant lightning, a lot of stars and even the Milky Way on the dark walk back.
I had a flashlight and used it in the dark spots. When we got back to our block
of rooms I was shining the light along the wall and there were dozens of light
slimy looking snaky lizards about 4 inches long. When the light hit them, they
would wiggle crawl away. At first I was inadvertently driving them along
towards our door. Then I had to stand on the sidewalk and use the light to
drive them off from our stoop one at a time. This should give me nightmares.
These were not the dry scaly looking chameleons of SW Florida. I don’t know
what these were!
Photos
