2013 Travel Dispatch #20 (Critters and On the Road)

The trip back to Ayers Rock was by bus again and there's not a whole lot terribly photogenic on most buses. I did try to do some shooting out the window, out of boredom more that anything else, but the results are even worse than trying to catch shots while running after a tour guide.

What did happen though, is we stopped a few times for leg stretching, food, loo etc. Outback stations can be pretty interesting places. I guess when people are out in the middle of nowhere they can get creative about how to amuse themselves -- but what would Adirondackers know about that?

Waiting for the bus outside our King's Canyon rooms for the ride back. It was after the rim walk, about 11:00 and the temperature was already at about 30 degrees C. A bit warmer that in SL that day I dare say.

At a stop along the way just to stretch our legs. The bus driver told us to go clime the sand dune. Yes that is a sand dune and it is in the middle of the outback. The sand is as fine as you'd see on any beach, except you may have noticed it's rather red.

King's Creek Station where we stopped to load and unload. 

Here's their menu and two of the girls at the counter. The King's Creek Burger was really very good.

It was at this station that we encountered some interesting critters that they kept there.

This is Snowflake who you already met in the top photo but were never properly introduced. Say "Hi".  Snowflake is a year old camel that thinks it's a dog. At her present age she stands right about six feet tall. She will grow and one can only hope she doesn't think of herself as a lap dog.

This one is for Jane M. A donkey I didn't catch the name of it, but it had the longest ears I've ever seen on a donkey.

Then there was the emu. Don't know its name either. But they certainly are a different looking bird. Actually Australia is full on interesting looking birds -- the feathered kind I'm referring to, of course.

And another more ordinary looking bird.

But the most exotic bird of the day was this one.

This was a VERY Italian woman who was on the tour with us. She was very animated, in the best Italian tradition, and very intense --and then there was the hair, a little reminiscent of the emu. A woman very comfortable with herself.

I was just on the verge of getting caught up when I hit a bit of a glitch last night. Yesterday we drove north from Cairns, very interesting driving on the left and negotiating the roundabouts, and spent some time at Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge. I got some nice shots. I think. I accidentally erased them before I had them on the computer. I spent most of last night trying to recover them from the disk without sufficient success. So I'm going to wait until I get home to try again with some better software. Next on the agenda is to try to make some sense of the pics I shot on the dive trip. 'Til then....

Photography by Burdette