Sat 4th August - We left Alice Springs in the morning and headed down the highway to the turn off at Erlunda. Again, not too much see along the way. Once we turned off the Stuart Highway we stayed at a free camp 100 km along the road. These camps are amazing. We always seem to get there early and pick the best spot and then as the afternoon progresses, more and more vans, cars and campers pull in. It feels like the nights are finally starting to warm up.

Sun 5th August - Off again to Kings Canyon - about 160 kms. There was so much camel poo on the road that I was going cross-eyed scanning the bush looking for some wild camels. We stopped for fuel at Kings Creek Station (about 39km short of Kings Canyon). Here they had not only EXTREMELY expensive fuel but camels as well so I took some photos to take the pressure off scanning the horizon constantly. After a lovely coffee and a refuel it was off for the last 39km to Kings Canyon Resort. The main thing "resort-like" about this place was the cost of the camping area - $19 per person per night.

Mon 6th August - Kings Canyon is 7km from the resort and we decided to do the Kings Canyon Rim Walk (6km and takes 3-4 hours). They advertise the beginning of the walk as "difficult with a short but very steep climb". Believe me, they didn't undersell it! But once on top of the canyon the walk around the rim is spectacular. Unfortunately, the day we did the walk, was so windy and would've blown a dog off a chain. The lookout was a bit scary as I felt the strong winds could've blown us over. The sheer rock walls are about 100 metres high with a lush gorge at the bottom.

Tue 7th August - On our way out of the Kings Canyon area, we decided to do the shorter 2km walk this morning of the Valley Walk. Very flat but lovely gums and river stones. We overnighted at a free camp just up the road from Mt Conner lookout. Mt Conner is a huge mesa (flat top mountain) and is often mistaken for Uluru. In fact, we heard some French people talking photos of it and the only work we understood was "Uluru". Ha ha. Across the road from the lookout was a sand dune and once you get to the top of the dune, there is a huge salt lake there. Very unexpected. As we were setting up for dinner at sunset, David noticed wild camels on the hill next to the campground - FINALLY! We had a lovely chat with 2 Japanese girls who are on their way to Kununurra to work on a sandalwood farm - lots of giggling around the campfire (no, not David) with some English and astonomy lessons thrown in.

Wed 8th August - As you drive toward Uluru, it gets pretty exciting waiting for the first sighting. We had 120 km to drive today and spotted the rock about 20km out from it. First impressions of the rock - AWESOME, HUGE, IMPRESSIVE. You can understand why this is such an important thing to the Aboriginals. I feel today, out of respect to them, that I won't climb it. It's on all the printed information - please don't climb. Of course its that respect and also the fact that it's BLOODY STEEP! I'm hoping to walk around the base with my girls on Saturday morning. We've now travelled 6,479 km.