Still in Cairns but we're off the boat and back on dry, solid ground. As it turned out, the dive boat we've been on for the past three days actually, unbelievably, did have wifi. They had it, but it was quite slow and of the 32 divers on board at least 22 of them were in their 20's and came fully loaded with all of their devices. The connection speeds were sorely challenged. I was glad I had chosen to leave the computer with the rest of the luggage. There also wasn't much spare time for doing such things as blogging. They took us out to dive and dive we did. But more about that in another post.
This post backs up to while we were still in the interior. We had just spent a night at King's Canyon Resort and had an early morning call to be out and ready to climb by something just plain stupid like 6:00 or something. Of course it made sense because it was supposed to be a hot day and getting an early start was going to kept us ahead of the heat.
This is looking toward the rim we are going to climb up to just as the sun starts to light it. We got to the bottom and started up...
Height and depth never record well in pictures. This was a seriously steep climb and fairly long. No competition for Huayna Picchu or Ampersand, but it definitely got the heart rate up.
This is toward the top of the climb when you could start to look out over the surrounding terrain. The red shirt helps highlight just how red the rock and soil are there.
Here's an elated and lovely you know who back lit by the morning sun after achieving the top of the rim. The whole hike was 6.6 km. There was the climb up, then a climb down to the waterhole at the bottom of the canyon, another climb back up to the rim and finally a decent back down to the desert floor.
We did the whole thing in just under three hours. It was a lovely hike and could have been a whole lot better but for the attitude of the guide we had. He was completely new to us and was just there for that hike. But it was obvious from the beginning that he didn't really want to be doing it. As a result he just ticked off the required marks and then rushed on to the next obligatory high lit of the walk. Apparently, as far as he was concerned, the only pictures worth taking were the ones to be gotten at the prescribed spots. Oh, how wrong he was. But at the pace he insisted on moving, it was very difficult to grab decent shots. Very disappointing morning from that perspective and lots of missed opportunities. If you fell behind, he actually yelled at you.
The composition of the rock that make up this area is very different than the rock structure we saw at Uluru. There the rock was smooth and uniform. At King's Canyon is it all kinds of rocks pressed together like a big wad of dough filled with a variety of nuts and chips.
Then there were the areas where erosion had stripped away the top layers and a layer of the old lake bed could be seen complete with the many million year old ripples still visible in the sand turned to stone.
But despite the guide, I managed to capture a few images of the area that were probably not in his guide book.
After the rim walk ended, at the late, late hour of 9 am, we got back on the bus and did the three hours back to Ayers Rock Resort for one more night there before flying on to Cairns. But before we get there, my next post will be of a few interesting critters we encountered on the return trip. I bet you can hardly wait. Right now it's time to put my waterlogged body to bed and hope it dries overnight. Not complaining, mind you, but this body has spent more time in water in the last three days that it has in three times that many months.
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