The Red Centre - King's Canyon

The next day started out slow, but somehow we packed up and made it to the Mount Connor lookout for breakfast a little over an hour away.  The lookout was okay, but the exciting thing was the dead camel we saw on the side of the road.  We were on the lookout for a wild one and keeping our fingers crossed that it would be alive.

After a long, uneventful drive, we managed to arrive at King's Canyon at 11am, which was unfortunately the peak heat of the day.  You'd think that we would have figured that out by now, but because of that we were unable to do the supposedly spectacular, 4 hour ridge walk around the canyon.  It was 34 degrees when we arrived, and we definitely didn't have enough water carrying capacity to do a 4 hour hike in the heat.  Instead, we did the lazy tourist thing and booked a hotel room at the resort and I bird watched from our balcony.  Later on we went to the campground to cook our salmon and veggies as a delicious "pre-dinner".

We were still hungry after that and could hardly wait until 6:00 when the restaurant opened for dinner.  As usual, we were the first and only ones in the restaurant for awhile.  Our second dinner was delicious (scallop salad and stuffed chicken), and we were early to bed again.  One night of partying was enough for us!

After a good night seep we packed up so we could do our short King's Creek walk by 9am.  Unfortunately, when we got to the trail I realized I had left my camera at the restaurant the night before, so we had to go back to get it.  UsuallyI would think that all signs were telling us not to do the hike, but we saw a wild dingo on our way to the hike for the third time so it was all worth it!

The hike was really easy and we regretted not planning more time for the longer ridge walk, but oh well.  The gorge was beautiful and I spent some time looking for a Mistletoe Bird without any luck.

I was "off the path" trying to track down the bird in the mistletoe bush with no luck.  Ryan found it hilarious.

Back in the car, we started our very long drive to Alice Springs.  The only noteworthy part of the drive was the wild camel we saw!  You've gotta love that just like in Canada the best way to spot wildlife is by watching for other cars that are pulled over on the side of the road!

We didn't get to Alice until 4pm that afternoon, so we checked right into our beautiful hotel, The Chiefly Alice Springs Resort.  It was actually a lot like a resort with palm trees and a pool with a (closed) swim-up bar, so we decided to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant.  Man, it was good!  We had braised rabbit and pumpkin (aka, squash) soup for our appetizers, then a kangaroo fillet and macadamia crusted barramundi (fish) on ratatouille, and we shared panacotta and ice cream for dessert.  My mouth is watering again just thinking about it!

After dinner we re-entered our food comas, so I fell asleep during whatever movie Ryan was watching.