Kings Canyon to Alice

   The fifth leg: Kings Canyon to Alice Springs.  Distance: 364km.  Get me off this damn road!!  We headed off from the canyon in the morning, intending to get to Alice before dark.  It wasn’t much of a drive, but there were sights to see and hikes to walk.  The dirt road to West Macdonnell National Park started off well enough, with the usual rough patches.  How we should have savored the smooth bitumen (or pavement, in American english) while it had lasted.  It deteriorated fast.  It was like driving on concrete that was littered with meteorite craters.  There was no escaping either, we tried driving on both sides of the road, the middle, and the very edge.  It felt like Frank was going to rattle to pieces.  There was silence in the cab because you had to shout to make it audible.  And this was only for 150km, we had just come from over 1000km of dirt with nothing close to these head-pounding corrugations.  The bitumen was highly praised as we entered the park, and even though several short patches of beat up dirt road remained, we had come through the worst of it rather unscathed (“what’s that rattle under the hood?”).

   We toured the sights of West Macdonnell National Park, filled with gorges, water holes, and red cliffs that are so iconic to these parts.  It was another full day, with hiking, swimming, and bird watching on tap.  We could’ve easily spent a week there, exploring and camping, however we had a job to get to and some nature to save.

   After stopping at Simpson’s gap so Tegan could giddily observe the endangered black-flanked rock wallabies, we rolled into Alice after dark in search of a caravan park.  "Please don't let everything be shut at 8pm!"  Oh the beauty of Google Maps and an iPhone.  We located our park (“camp anywhere, we’re not very full”) and were treated to the nicest grass we’d seen on the trip.  For dinner, we treated ourselves to Hanuman, an Indian/Thai place near the golf course (Mom and Grandma, you know the one).  Some good sights, nice grass, and a great meal.  No better way to end the day after our struggles on that damn dirt.
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Coming up: we hit the tropics, touch the Devil's Marbles, and thank our lucky stars we didn't camp in Tennant Creek.