Before we left for a hike this morning we saw a Dingo right outside our hotel room and got a good picture. We went on a hike in the boulder strewn floor of Kings Canyon. It was very beautiful with a creek along the way. We had quite a small group and a very good guide. The temp at mid-day today was 100 degrees so doing the hike early was wise. It actually was rather shaded along our path. We are very glad we came to Kings Canyon. It was even more remote than Ayers Rock but had very nice accommodations at the resort. The Aboriginal people of this region are the Luritja.
Then we traveled another 300 miles to Alice Springs. Up until now we have not seen many Aboriginal people in the outback but they populate about 1/3 of Alice Springs.
We were very surprised at how green the outback is. 2009 was the driest year on record and 2010 was almost the wettest they have seen. We crossed the Finke river which actually had running water in it which again is very unusual and only seen about every 10 years. The river bottoms are usually completely dry but they say they can flood in a matter of hours if there's a hard rain.