navelgazing.omphaloskeptic.net Journal

Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

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Around the Rock Kings Canyon, NT, Australia, Saturday, 18 June 2011 6:00pm

My timing is a little off today. I visited the Post Office at 8:30am and 1:00pm, and it turns out that their Saturday hours are 9:00-12:00. And when I made it back to Curtain Springs at 2:30, hoping for another of those great burgers, I found out that they closed the restaurant between 2:00 and 5:30. Oops.†

I spent the morning walking around Ayers Rock. I did about 2km of the Base Walk, then realized that I didn't have any of my snacks in my bag. After returning to the van to eat an apple and grab some Clif bars, I started again and did the 10km walk.

It is indeed a very large rock. There are some interesting features, and I would have been interested to see a geological explanation of them as well as the aboriginal creation stories that explain the wavy lines as the marks of a snake and the holes as spear marks from a battle.

I had an extra day in my schedule, in case of problems. I've decided to spend that time at Kings Canyon, so I spent the afternoon driving there. About half of the drive was on a road, rather than the highway, so there was pleasantly little traffic and none of the really big trucks. The plan is to do a canyon hike in the morning and then return to Alice Springs.