2019 Australia Trip - Day 11

After a much warmer sleep last night while wearing 4 layers of warm clothes, I woke up super early, under a sky full of stars! We left the camp site by 6 AM, heading into King’s Canyon.

Today, we hike the rims of the canyon. The entire hike takes about 3 hours.

It started with a very difficult climb up a steep hill called “heart attack hill”. Evan, with his young legs and excellent health , climbed way ahead of us. The rest of us huffed and puffed our way up. We were greeted with a magnificent view of the canyon and land far beyond. Blue sky, red land and greens extended all the way to the horizon.

We then continued on for hours, admiring the beautiful rock formations all around us, and hiked to a calm waterhole that’s surrounded by large vegetation called Garden of Eden. I have to say my daily workouts paid off here since I was able to keep up with Evan, climbing up and down on many, many rocky hills. Winter wind chilled our faces, and bright sunshine warmed our backs. We hiked fast and efficient, with no one else but our camping group behind us.

Next leg of the trip is far more boring, we basically needed to drive 5 and 1/2 hours to Alice Springs. The vast Outback landscape stretched in front of us, on and on. However, we did stop for a bathroom break. Rita told us every tree is a loving tree, feel free to relief yourself around it. LOL! I think this is the first time I heard a tour guide encouraging us to relieve ourselves outdoors!

We stopped at a small town on the way to have lunch. There is an Emu enclosure here. While trying to feed them, Evan’s finger was bitten! Fortunately nothing serious.

After a long drive, we finally arrived at Alice Springs!! We will sleep in an actual bed tonight! Woohoo!

There is some mishaps about the hostel the tour group booked for us. So we decided just book a much nicer hotel - Doubletree hotel here for tonight instead of sharing room with strangers. Private bathroom too! What a treat after roughing it for the past 3 days!Read more