May 10 Back to Alice

We made our way back to Alice Springs and found a nice place to camp about 60km south of Alice - just opposite the turn-off to Owen Springs. We were the only campers with plenty of open space and set well back from the highway. All was well until dusk. Then the little buggers started to rustle in the long grass. Princess became even more energised and darted through the long grass on a mission. She got a taste for it the previous night when she made her second kill for the trip. She knew what she was after. As the darkness increased, so did the courage of the mice. They came out in pairs, then 3 or 4 of them together, scuttling about in random directions.

Armed with 2 mouse traps, I attended to my manly duties of protecting our home. I melted easter egg chocolate onto the traps, which made it harder for the mice to lick off without triggering the trap. Within an hour I had filled a plastic bag with 30 mouse corpses. After setting the traps, I could barely get back into the van and sit down before the "bang" of the trap going off could be heard. I would return to the battlefield, remove the victim and go through the cycle of setting the trap again. I could have kept going all night as there seemed to be an endless supply of reinforcements being sent from the wilderness on to our camp site. In the end, I'm not sure who actually won the battle.

Fortunately, we haven't had any mice in the caravan yet. If we had, then the trip would have been over and Judith would have returned home (although we're a bit worried about just how many mice will be living it up in our little Talbot home at the moment). But we do know that the mice can get into the car, despite locked windows and doors. We ensure that all food in the car is either locked tightly away in plastic storage containers or moved into the van for the night.

In the interests of any children who may ever look at this blog, I will not include a picture of the mass dead. However, I have had a request for more gore in the blog, more blood and guts. So here are a couple of mouse photos that will hopefully satisfy my brother Stuart.

Mouse trapped in the car over night

Ruby finding a dead mouse at a gorge

Dead mouse floating at the gorge

The mouse that Princess caught

May 9 Kings Canyon

After leaving Yalara, we drove about half way towards Kings Canyon and stopped at a rest area called Salt Creek. We had lunch and decided to stay the afternoon and night. We relaxed and caught up on reading the paper and other such chores. Later in the day, our neighbours from the previous night at Yalara, Ken and Elaine from Rockingham, pulled in beside us. Seems that we keep meeting up with folks that we've met the day before. Our other neighbours at Yalara were Kevin, who we met at Mt Ebenezer the night before and a young Sydney/German couple, who we were to meet again at Kings Canyon.

We went first to Kathleen Springs. A short walk into an area where they used to round up cattle and provide them water from a natural spring. The rock cliffs provided a natural perimeter fence to contain the cattle.

Kathleen Springs

We then went on to Kings Canyon. Another national park, but this time at least dogs were allowed in the car park. However, this made it impractical to take on the longer walks. We initially completed the short creek walk, which was a nice enough walk.

Judith very kindly offered to look after the dogs while I went on one of the longer walks around Kings Canyon. Wow, its big and impressive. It just keeps going. One of the highlights of our trip so far. Would love to have spent longer and walked further but happy to come back again and see the rest of it.

If you look closely you can see little specks at the top of the cliff - they're people

We returned to the Salt Creek rest area for the night, stopping at Kings Creek Station on the way. Jodie had recommended the camel burger, so we gave it a try - it was good!

The famous camel burger from Kings Creek Station

May 7 The Olgas

After our tag-team viewing of Ayers Rock in the morning, we decided to smuggle the dogs through the check-point entry to the national park and visit the Olgas. We got past the guards OK and parked at the furthest point of the parking lot. We left the dogs in the car and managed to walk most of the way into one of the Olgas' gorges. The dogs were fine. They are quite happy staying in the car, in contrast to the caravan.

The Olgas look like a happy bunch of rocks, compared to the single monolith that is Ayers Rock. And as it is commonly explained around here - Ayers rock is like a sponge cake and the Olgas are like a fruit cake. That's a good description of the Olgas, as you can see they are a lumpy mixture of rocks when you get up close and especially when you walk in amongst them on the uneven surfaces.

The Olgas from the roadside viewing area

The Olgas from the car window - nice shot Jude

The happy bunch of rocks

Walking into the gorge

The inside view of the gorge

While visiting the Olgas, we bumped into "Tammy" (lady from Tamworth) and Enrico again. Nice to see them again. Then we saw them again roaming around the shops at the Yalara resort. We were invited to dinner and had a lovely evening in the camping area sharing a lovely meal of burritos. And we learned that Tammy's real name is Jody. Thanks for a great evening.