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Australia 2011
Day 5 - 2nd August - Kings Canyon (Part 3)
Before we left the Yulara (Uluru) area we went to stock up on goods. 600ml of Coke (and other non-premium drinks) was $2.98, while 1.25l was only $3.15, but it'd get warm, I'd be the only one drinking it and it was probably too big to fit inthe car drinks holder. So I settled for the smaller bottle.
Convenient urinal. Note also how cold the toilet water is.
$10,000 reward for information on bank robberies
We then drove up to Kings Canyon.
At one point there was a plane in the sky which looked suspended in the air - because there were no clouds around it as points of reference.
At Curtin Springs (a rest stop) there was a German girl on a working holiday. She got the saikang job of coming out of the station to fill fuel for customers.
On our way back down the highway the dead camels we'd seen earlier had been cleared. How efficient. Then again it was a major motorway.
There were many signs reading "road hazard ahead". The hazard was not specified, and we couldn't spot anything.
Someone had drawn a crocodile on a "floodway" sign. (Un)fortunately, we were too far inland for that. Seeing dry rivers was quite interesting.
"Fucking Good Port"
We saw a bushfire on the way up.
There were a lot of potholes on the road up to Kings Canyon, and one stretch was especially bad. Even my force mastery was not enough to avoid enough of them. Maybe a Malaysian would've fared better.
After about 3 hours, we reached Kings Canyon.
"Do not feed the dingoes". Maximum fine $2,000
Gourmet experience ad
I think I took this for "pizza oil" (?!) and "vegetable" and similar bad Australian English.
To keep the place beautiful you're supposed to use "sanitary bins for their intended use". What else would you use them for?! Then again women from countries where toilets clog easily might think them bins to throw used toilet paper.
The rangers were cleaning the toilets. Sad. In the absence of banglas to clean them, and no one on a working holiday, this highly trained labour was wasted - they should've done more value-added work.
Welcome to Kings Canyon
We had a choice of two tracks. We chose the shorter one as we'd driven the whole day, and it was late.
"Do you have 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep?"
Two ways. I liked the hat. Alternate caption: "Why you should come in winter"
The cliffs we would be mounting the next day
Kings Canyon Panorama
You can hear my expounding on the potential of this site
Range as refuge
Trees of the Creek Bed
I don't know why the trees on the creek bed were white. Presumably they were not painted. No wonder they had to caution against graffiti.
A Place of Plants
Slope
Another white tree
River path
Colourful rocks
Sedimentary rocks
From a Crack to a Canyon
Dangerous bench to sit on
Funny vandalism
A Sanctuary
We were not supposed to go further as it was Sacred Land
Where you can't go
Panorama 2, at end of Canyon
IIRC the only other people there at this late hour were a Wallonian family (I think I only found out they were Belgian later after an embarrassing assumption).
Paper leaves
Leaves detail
Leaves and fruit
Painful-looking leaves
Yellow flowers close up
Yellow flowers
This is supposed to be a view of flies which had gone splat on our screen
There were some "Maui. Spirit of Independence" vans. Wrong country!
Far view of Kings Canyon from Sunset spot
Nature's giant paintbrush
Sunset
We then returned to the resort.
Our Kings Canyon Resort room - like a Prison Cell
Before dinner we went to check out the minimart.
"Great Aussie Flynet. Protection from all insects... Research shows that flies like most of us like their space. So we have featured 101 flies on the top section, leaving no room for other flies to land, consequently, they buzz off and bother someone else, try it! This is the only flynet with this feature!"
Spot the bad English as well. This seemed very dodgy.
"Mi goreng, Mi goreng satay, Mi goreng BBQ Chicken"
How come Australia and New Zealand (I checked the packaging) get these flavours but not Singapore?!
There was an ethnic Chinese family from Réunion. The woman spoke Cantonese but I didn't.
There was a suitably overpriced restaurant. I didn't get to find out what "Desert Dust" was. Perhaps seasoning.
Camel burger. It was blandish but there was a slight hint of the smell of camel hair.
I couldn't decide if it was better than kangaroo.
I had no reception here so my SIM was useless. I declined to pay cutthroat rates for Internet access, which would've been beside the toilet too.
Lazy letter
Paul's full cream milk was $2.30 for 600ml. Coke was $4 for 600ml. US coke cans were $3.50 and normal ones $3. Yes it was very expensive. I couldn't decide what to get so I got 600ml each of Coke and Fanta Orange (for some reason there was no lemon in Oz). And the Fanta expired 20 September 2011. Not only was it super expensive, it was almost condemned.
"A Fed Dingo is Dead Dingo"
More bad English
More bad English. And I have my doubts about their "great benefits & bonuses"
I don't need to caption this, a product of "native English speakers". And no I don't think it was air conditioned.
The wonderful kitchen had no utensils, so one needed to checkout a tub of equipment. Which even came with a sponge and dishwashing liquid (???). The place was damn sad if people would steal those things.
"Mild curry" and its ingredients
It was like Jap curry with fewer spices.
"Redheads... longer, thicker matches"
Presumably there was a reference to eyelashes and not, erm, yeah.
Satay Indomie was weird. BBQ Chicken was okay. With MSG everything tastes the same anyway.
A very strange use of the imperative mood.
Dingo in carpark at night
There was also an Asian Girl jogging. I hope she didn't get eaten.
More Australian English
Since there was nothing to do, we got 8.5 hours of sleep.
A lot of places sold gravy. Why you'd need to pay for zhap was, and still is, a mystery to me.