Alice and a big red rock

Whenever a mechanic says “it’ll be finished in an hour”, punch him then take your business elsewhere. We raised at 6:30ish in order to take Max to the doctors for 7:45. He needed the shackles on the front suspension replacing and regreasing. After a bit of pressure, they (the mechanics) finally had him ready by 1pm. Meanwhile, Orla and I mozied around town and bought brekkie and lunch for a change.

So, by the time we had filled up, hunted some supplies, and got on the road it was well into the afternoon. Today we were heading to the ‘West Macs’, the West MacDonald Ranges, the site of yet more gorges, waterholes and chasms.

We had a quickish look and climb of Simpsons gap and then drove to Standley chasm but didn’t go in. At $6.50 a pop, we decided to just preserve our memories of Echidna Chasm and miss it out. On then to Ellery Ck Big Hole to camp for the night.

Decent campsite complete with our own fire pit and wood that someone had kindly left behind. Got chatting to a family (Mother, Father, Son and Uncle) and cracked open my birthday bottle of Chianti. Turned out the Uncle was a plastic Irishman whose mother was English.

However, when we finally got there, it was well worth the effort. Although another gorge, it has the added bonus of containing tropical plants including Red Cabbage Palms (you will have probably noticed Aussies are really imaginative when it comes to naming sites of interest!) Also, bein about 8am, we had the place to ourselves. As usual, we picked the longer of the two available walks (6kms) and marched around in less than two hours!

Remember April 3^rd when Max spat off his watertank and the superfriendly Wayne fixed it for us in Whyalla? Well, that wasn’t the end of Max’s watertank tantrums because near the end of the Palm Valley track, and with 200kms of corrugated dirt-road to go, he did it again! To quote an Aussie saying “Bugger!” Fortunately, I’m a dab-hand with a bit of rope so I just did a ‘half-hitching, fishermans, double-reef, granny-bend knot’ and it held! My kids will definitely go to Scouts.

So, 3 hours later we arrived at Kings Canyon resort and chilled in the pool before showering and cooking a feast of veggies and rice.

Joined the barrage of tourists watching the sun rise over Uluru – which wasn’t worth the early morning effort btw. Still, we’ll no doubt bore you with the photos! Then we drove the rest of the 15km loop (gives you an idea how big this thing is) to the climb start.

Now, Aboriginal locals ask tourists not to climb the rock as it is a sacred place. However, unlike certain parts of the rock (at the base), they don’t completely ban it. Could this be due to the fact that most (able) visitors to the rock want to climb it and would maybe think twice if it wasn’t possible? Cynical? Maybe, but when you consider that Aborigines profit to the tune of $2.5M / yr from park entrance fees, there’s definitely a reason to keep it open. As for the request not to, this could be a red-herring to deter people from climbing and therefore reduce their insurance liability! Now I am being cynical!

Anyway once you get to the top (which was definitely not easy both physically and mentally), its worth it. If only for the view of the Olgas alone.

On returning to the base, we joined a ranger talk (one Aboriginal tour guide and one white guide) which was excellent. We learnt a hell of a lot about Aboriginal life etc (and I think I formed the above opinion afterwards). Then we went to the Olgas and practically ran the 7.3km walk – phew!