Down Under Day 16 Northern Territories

We were woken at 5:25am by Wookie although I'm not sure that I slept much anyway. It was a quick wash and stuff, pack the swags away and on the bus to get to the view point before sunrise.
It was still dark when we arrived and we were the only bus there. Wookie started on getting breakfast ready whilst we watched for the sun to rise.

 The toast was made on this contraption with a flame burning inside a metal pyramid and it took about 8 seconds per side to do. It was also a source of warmth for some.

 As expected it was yesterday in reverse, as the sun comes up the rock goes from a steely grey colour to red. The red colour comes from the high iron content in the rock and its basically just rusty .

After the show was over we packed up and headed the 50 kms to Kata Tjuta or The Olgas. The name means many heads in the Anangu language. We were going to do the valley of the winds walk which was around 2-3 hours and were due to meet up with Wookie near the end of the walk. I was soon being left behind as I stopped to watch birds and It was here that I saw my only wild Red Kangaroo as it bounced away through the bush.

Singing Honeyeater

Budgerigar

Diamond Dove

Zebra Finch

I eventually got a move on and arrived at the meeting place at the same as everybody else. Wookie had this place marked out as the place for the group photo and we had to go through a series of stupid poses for the many photo's. 

We then made our way back to where the bus was parked and after a brief stop to take photos,

we set off on the three hour drive to our next camp site near Kings Canyon. We stopped on the way to collect logs and branches for our fire that evening. The trees on the side of the road are blackened and burnt, sometimes from lightening strikes but mostly from the heat of the summer sun. It was hot, dirty work as we all dragged large branches and stacked them to be loaded onto the trailer. We made one more stop on the way to take photos of Mount McConnell. A huge rocky outcrop that I had seen from the plane as we flew over.

We arrived at Kings Road Station, our campsite around 5pm and after unloading the trailer headed for the showers. Wookie had the fire going by the time we got back and had started on the evening meal. It was Chillie-con -carne(for the herbivores) and a bean version for me, with rice and roasted vegetables as well, all cooked in large pots on the fire.

After an excellent meal we sat around the camp fire again chatting and drinking beer until one by one everybody just grabbed a swag and turned in for the night.

It was to be another early start next morning as we wanted to be at the canyon before the crowds started arriving. I slept better tonight as I had made a pillow out of a tee shirt and all my other clothes, but I did wake around 3am and putting the flap back had one of the most amazing sights I'll ever see. The sky was filled with stars, billions of them. Its easy to see why were are part of the milky way, as that's just what it was like, milk. With no light pollution to mask all but the brightest stars the sky was spectacular, worth waking up in the middle of the night for.