When I woke up I heard dingoes howling from
various spots around the campground. Later in the morning as we were getting
ready to leave we heard a howl and then saw a dingo at the base of the sand
dunes right near us. There was much excitement all round and he disappeared
into the bushes before anyone could get a photo.
We packed up, which was a pretty big job
after 4 days, and were ready to leave by 11. We waved goodbye to Uluru and set
off back East. We stopped at Curtin Springs to get fuel and the kids and wandered
around to see the emu (1 emu by himself, standing in his little food shelter
and looking like he wanted to escape) and the native bird aviary (lots of
budgies and other colourful birds). We continued the drive east and then turned
to go up to Kings Canyon. We arrived at Kings Canyon resort around 2pm, after
watching the ranges rise up from the flat ground for a while before we arrived.
The unpowered area was unassigned, so we
looked around for a bit and found a spot near the fence with a partial view across
to the ranges. There were ant holes everywhere, but they didn’t ever bother us.
We camped next to a couple that Caitlin had met a few times (at Marla and at
Uluru) so chatted to them on and off. While we were setting up a dingo wandered
over to check us out – the first of many. The dingoes wander the campground
constantly, and keeping food away from them is quite tricky. They aren’t
aggressive, and they aren’t scared. The information around the park says not to
chase them or lunge at them – it’s hard to know what to do when they are trying
to steal things off our table.
Once we were set up I took the kids to the
pool for a swim while Tony checked out the general store. Milk was $3 for 1L of
UHT and the white bread was $5.50, meat was very expensive so we decided to use
our current supplies of food while we were here. As we were getting ready to go
Millie and I had a collision through the tent door (we both went to open it at
once, from either side, and her hand collided with my ear, and as I stood up in
pain my elbow collected her chin). I quickly opened the door and scooped her
out of the tent, and as I crouched down to cuddle her and make sure she was ok,
my pants split, from just above the knee to half way up my leg! I had a brief
swim – the water was not quite as cold as at Yulara, still pretty cold though.
A couple of other kids came to swim as well, a 14 year old boy and 6 year old
girl. Caitlin and LiAM swam and played with the boy for ages, Millie and the
girl played on the grass near the pool and in the playground. They were very
similar and got on really well. The mum came over and we chatted for a while,
and the girls went back to Millie’s friend’s caravan to do some drawing. After
the swim everyone had a shower and Millie talked a bit more to her friend. We
sat at the tent doing puzzles and reading and enjoying some quiet time.
I went up to the sunset viewing platform
with LiAM – it was too cloudy for an impressive sunset, but we did chat to our
friends from the sunrise platform at Yulara. There was a drinks bar at the
viewing platform and LiAM was briefly excited – it was $5 for a can of soft
drink, and between $9 and $11 for a beer, so we decided to leave those drinks
where they were.
Caitlin was sitting and reading at the
table before dinner and looked up to see a dingo standing on the table – gave
her a bit of a shock! Millie and I met one in the dark as we walked between 2
caravans – it seemed a bit scared of us and we were a little nervous too, we
edged past each other without incident, it was the first time I’d seen one that
wasn’t fully confident. We had tuna and rice for dinner and then packed up our
tubs so that nothing was exposed for the dingoes. We put stuff in the trailer
or tent and stacked the rest. I sewed up my pants, and Caitlin’s leggings which
had also split along the leg seam that day. LiAM left his window open so that
he could see if any dingoes came – and just after I’d finished reading he saw a
dingo climb up to the top of our stack of tubs and knocked the two lighter ones
off the top. We scared him off before he took anything, and put more stuff in
the tent and trailer and made sure that everything that was left was very
securely fastened.
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