Cutlers Cruz Aus: July 2012

KINGS CANYON - BY ALIZAH

We stayed at Kings Creek Station, the first thing we saw a bird just sitting outside on its perch. I thought it wasn’t real. When mum walked out of reception she went over to it and it was real, his name was Charlie the Cockatoo.

We went for a quick drive up the road to look at the Canyon, Kings Canyon Resort where we had a play in the park. Mum brought us some marshmallows so we could toast them on the fire but she said we could only have one each because they cost $5 for the little packet. On the way home we went to Kathleen Springs, it was cool, it had old stables and talked about how the dream time snakes left their prints.

We went looking for fire wood on the side of the road with the Brennan's, dad loaded the top of the our car up. Around the fire we told jokes and ate marshmallows.

The next day Dad Levi and I (Alizah) went with the Brennan’s for a 4 hour walk around the rim of the ginormous Canyon. Mum stayed home and hand washed all the clothes, then a huge dust storm came through and made them all dirty again.

We went to toilet before we went for this walk as there were no toilets at the top and Levi always needs to go.

Walking around the top there were tiny little gapes we had to squeeze though. I thought I might get stuck, but I didn't.

Nathan, Jacob, Levi and I made a rock pinnacle with 16 rocks from biggest to smallest on top of large rock we climbed. We laid RIGHT on the EDGE of the canyon looking over at the fallen rocks down below. We crossed 4 bridges and only one had water under it was called the Garden of Eden it was full of lush green plants and trees and heaps of bird life. It had a crystal clear billabong through it then came into and waterfall and a drop. We stood right on the edge of the drop on the cliff. Levi thought he was pretty cool to have lunch with Jacob on the 4m rocks. (Of course they took their lunch while climbing)It only took them 2 mins to get up there. Levi said it was easy for a *pro climber * like him. As we headed to the end it was a bit of a rough road I had a bit of a fall and hurt my foot by the time we got home it was all better. We were all very tired from our big walk!!!!! (Finished it in 3.5 hours)

Charlie

The picture doesn't do it much justice but the colours are so amazing

Zara trying to hold the rock up

Kaine doing art on the sand

Kathleen Springs

the colours and shapes are amazing

how you all going to get down now?

Another family shot

Jamie getting our supply of fireword strapped down

All of the following photos are from walking the rim

livn on the edge

Garden of Eden

Cool dead tree

About 150kms away from Uluru I spot a huge big red mountain out the window. I screamed in excitement "OMG, I am the first person to see it". The kids instantly stopped playing their games and stared with amazement. Alizah was so excited, "Levi, Levi look, it's Uluru". I quickly made Jamie go crazy with the camera, making sure we remembered that first glimpse. Alizah commented " it looks a lot rounder in all the pictures I have seen, that has a flat top". Jamie said, "it must be a big flammin rock if we can see it from 150kms away". Then it hit me, I read about this mountain in the travel guide, it was recommended we check out the mountain with the flat top, Mount Connor. Well didn't we feel a bit silly. Jamie then started deleting photos so we had room for the real thing.

We arrived and set up just in time to watch the sunset over Uluru (Ayers Rock) our meeting place to see the Brennan's, Vicki , Doug, Nate and Jacob. Finally we got to catch up with some friendly faces. Levi was so excited at the thought of seeing his best friend Jacob from school who are also travelling Aus. He was almost bursting, talking the whole 7hour trip from Coober Pedy , Jacob this, Jacob that. It was really cute. After a wine and some non stop chat the sun was well and truly set so we decided to go to the outback bbq for dinner. Very expensive, we did however have a voucher for 2 adults meals and 2 kids meals for $60, which in my books is still very expensive considering we had to cook our own meat. Jamie and I tried Crocodile for the first time, very nice when it is hot straight off the bbq. You know what they say, tastes like chicken. I do recommend though if you’re eating it don’t let it go cold as it is tough, hard and then tastes like crap. After dinner there was a guy with his guitar playing music, he was really good. It was nice to kick back and enjoy and even have a dance or two. The kids thought it was the worst thing in the world we could have done to them keeping them up to 11pm and having to witness me dance around. Jamie and I enjoyed ourselves so it was worth the grumbling.

As it was a late night for the kids, we thought we would give sunrise over Uluru a miss and have a bit of a sleep in. So it turned out to be an activity day. The kids did some aboriginal painting on a bookmark and boomerang, we visited the cultural centre and had a drive around the base of Uluru. We arrived at the point you can walk up so Alizah, Levi and I decided to go for a little walk up it. Bloody hell, it’s a big rock. We were half way up the chain part and Levi said he had enough, I talked him into a little further which he did then said, “this is awesome and we have to keep going” so I wasn’t able to weasel out of it either. We continued up and down the mounds of the rock until we reached the point where you could see over both sides, at this point the wind was very strong Alizah’s hat almost blow away and Levi was busting to go to the toilet. So we didn’t quite make it to the top but it was a great view and my heart was beating out of my chest.

Back down the bottom it was food time again. I know all we do is eat, but after all this strenuous exercise you must eat. This time Kangaroo was on the menu. It was nice, really soft but I need to get my head around the thought that I’m eating Skippy, before I have it again.

Next morning was the day we went to see the sunrise over Uluru and of course it had to be the coldest morning at -5°C . We had so much clothes on we could barely even walk. It soon warmed up slightly on our drive to Kata Tjuta (Olgas), these were quite amazing as they are so much bigger than Ayers Rock but are spread out so it doesn’t really look it. We got our first look at wild camels, Jamie walk over close to them to get a photo and one was shaking it’s head up and down and spitting so I made him get the hell out of there. Another first was Levi learnt how to throw a boomerang. I embarrassed myself thoroughly, by asking the person teaching it (who was aboriginal mind you) “Why is it thrown that certain way?” His response. “ I have no idea, I’m filling in for someone else”. So once again Jamie was right when he says, “Don’t assume anything?”.

After the boomerang throwing, there was a display of Aboriginal dances, these guys did a great job, especially scaring the pants of Kaine.

July 1^st is Northern Territory day for those who don’t know. I am made to believe it is the only day that anyone can buy and let off fireworks. The Resort had a fantastic display that went well over half an hour. With it over we decided to have a early night but for the next 3 hours people all over the campgrounds where letting these things off.

Our last day was quite lazy and relaxing, a little bit of school work with the kids, then out to see the camels , these ones you could hire for rides so it wasn’t as worrying as Jamie’s experience. Kaine’s favourite animal is the camel , so he didn’t want to leave.

Next drive is to Kings Canyon.