I was picked up at 6 am and after we picked up all the others we started our long journey to Kings Canyon.
If you hear Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) you always think it is right around the corner of Alice Springs, but it is actually quite far away I think about 450 km to 500 km. But today we actually drove 700km.
So after all that driving it was nice to get out and go for a hike in Kings Canyon. it was also a big change in landscape. All the way the way there was through desert. Kings Canyon is pretty green and used ti be the last refuge fir aborigines if they couldn't find any food anywhere else.
Mark, our tour guide, was pretty knowledgeable and told us about all sort of plants that were used by the aborigine for example a tree got white powder on its bark and it was used as sunscreen. Or onother plant could keep them awake for 36 hours straight but he also said that if we white people would eat it, we'd get diarrhea.
The walk took about 3 hrs, but luckily the temperature was nice and cool.
Afterwards we had to collect firewood for the next two days. So we stopped next to an area where a bush bush fire burned all the trees.
We arrived at our bush camp at about 7.30 pm so it was already dark. Two guys started the fire while the other either set up the swags (Australian mix between tent and sleeping bag). Mark cooked the rice and vegetabled on hot coals from the fire.
Then we sat down on our swag and had tea/dinner.
Afterwards Mark explained how to check the swags for spiders, snakes andSkorpions as well as other treasures. Luckily nobody found any of that.
so after you rolled out the swag and checked it, you only have to put your sleeping bag inside and you are set for the night.
Since we really were in the bush, we only had a so called bush toilet, which basically was a digged hole in the ground and a portable tin hut with a seat. So it was real outbacky.
The stars we were able to see were amazing. I even saw a couple shooting stars!