Said goodbye to both Ruth and Uluṟu this morning (at least for now) and started on the next leg of our adventure – to Kings Canyon.

We left Ayer’s Rock Resort at around 10.30 after inhaling one last ‘real’ coffee.  It was about a 300 km drive- on tarmac but narrow with few places to stop. 

We did find a place to pull over and photograph Mount Connor- yet another large table-like rock looming purple out of nowhere.

And of course we stopped for a brief roadside picnic. But otherwise it was full steam ahead.

The landscape was much more vegetated and undulating than we expected (we had expected uninterrupted red earth expanses). 

Arrived at Kings Creek station (beef & camel farm) around 2pm.  The station seems to be the gathering place for the whole region. The general store is the only one within 330k and the only fuel source.  

After checking in to our tented camp – beautiful canvas sided cabins with mesh sides to keep things cool- we set off on our first walk. Picked a shorty – 3.5km return to to Catherine Springs-as we had to be back to the general store for dinner and then back to our tent by sunset (rental cars are only insured to drive between sunrise and sunset here).

Dinner (at 5pm) was a chicken burger the size of Texas – decided I couldn’t go the camel burger when all its buddies were calling to me over the fence.

Am now sitting on the verandah of our tent with the sun gone down and a glass of red to ward off the looming cold listening to the howls of a pack of what we think are dingos. Definitely zipping the tent tonight.