Out Bush

Ayers Rock

Since Fred (my stepfather) probably won't be returning to Australia, we decided that it was imperative to squeeze in seeing two of the most famous sites in the country, Ayers Rock (Uluru to the Aboriginals) and King's Canyon. Both are within driving distance but, although they look close on the map, are quite a distance. Since Cole hurt his leg, and camping exhausted us, we decided to cut the trip to two nights away. The first was spent at Ayers Rock in a small cabin on with facilities close by, the second was spent in nice little hotel rooms at King's Canyon Resort.

Ayers Rock is a huge rock (not mountain)held sacred by the Aboriginals. What to do there? Well, you look at the rock. You can also take various "walks" around the rock or actually climb the rock if you choose. The aboriginals discourage climbing although it is allowed and there are even chains/ropes to help you up and down. In the pics of AR, towards the end there is a blurry one with little people on top climbing up. It looks to be a scary little climb (I'm afraid of heights). Either way, even if we had wanted to do other things, time would only afford taking in the sunset and sunrise views. Which we took many pictures of. It was truly beautiful and probably would have been quite peaceful if not for our crazy loud kids. Note, in the pictures of sunset, we look disgusting. We had been traveling all day.

Kings Canyon

King's Canyon is like our Grand Canyon only much smaller. We drove in on our second day, and walked the bottom of the canyon. There is also a 3-4 hour rim walk but only Jason and I could have walked it and we didn't have the time. Towards the end of the canyon pictures, you see a pic with people climbing up the steep slope to the rim. Jason wants to go back one day to do it, it makes me a little queasy thinking about it.

At the end of the King's Canyon album are the pics from our drive back home. Now this was absolutely the most exciting part of the trip for me. (I know, I'm crazy) For the first 2 1/2 hours of the drive, we traveled Aboriginal land (had to a purchase a permit) all of which was dirt/gravel road. Talk about a ride. The girls rode in the 1994 4 Runner and the boys in the 2005 Ford F150. Worse yet, the A/C on the 4Runner has been going out. Out of necessity, we led the way home, since open windows on dirt roads behind big trucks spells dirty disaster! The 4Runner rattled until I thought it was going to fall apart. Halfway there I actually had to stop and pee out bush!!!! Talk about an exposing experience - even though it wasn't until the last half hour out that we actually saw another vehicle on the road. The highlight was when we had to stop to let camels and wild horses cross the road! I loved every minute of our roughing it while the boys had a very boring cushy little ride.