Day 4 - Ayers Rock & King’s Canyon

August 9^th is marked another record-breaking day in terms of driving – 726km with 100km off road at a speed of 20kmh. We started 30km from Ayers Rock – the most sacred aboriginal place in Australia. Huge red stone with caves, water pathways and aboriginal paintings looked especially thrilling in the sunrise. We took a Mala walk to have a close look at caves and rock structure.

Later on we drove to Kings Canyon area, which happened to be 300km away from Ayers Rock. But what is 300km in our 6,000km drive J King’s Canyon ranges stretch for kilometers with multiple red rock castles – they all were sand dunes ages ago, while strong winds have made them solid, similarly shaped rocks with notable red color. Canyon was not impressive from the first look, but at a different angle…

Two-hour hike around King’s Canyon finished with meeting French hitchhikers from yesterday. We wished them luck for the rest of the trip and went for a 334km run to Alice Springs.

Ayers rock was a major tourist place, and one could see this from fluctuation of fuel and burger prices J Fuel jumped from $1.30 to $1.93, and burger – from $8 to $15. We have already spent $500 on fuel and probably another $1000 is waiting for us ahead…

We traveled another 100km on the highway and took an off-road 100km shortcut to Alice Springs… That was the best driving experience so far! Kitchen appliances at the back added some drums to our music. The car shook in all the directions with average speed of 25kmh. We have made it to the highway in 3 hours in the dark seeing kangaroos, wild horses, cows, loads of small animals and dodgy road train drivers.

Midnight. We finally arrived to Alice Springs (it took us 5.5 hours) – connected to Internet and mobile again, and first shower in 5 days J Chilling out at Day 5 and then back on the road!