Tropical Winter, Tue, 15 Aug 2017 | written by Simon
Simon with Charlie, Dee, Eva at a City, Transit in Australia, Australia & Oceania

Today was a travel day. We had a relatively lazy morning, Eva and I went to see the sunrise over the canyon, we had breakfast outside watching birds and people on the campsite, dingos running about… Really need to come back here at some point.
We left by 8:30 to catch our flight at 2pm. On the way we saw a wild camel just hanging out casually by the road. So now we have echidna, roos, lizards, dingos and camel. Not too bad. Now some more stories to help you pass the 3.5h long journey.
On the road there were quite a few short road-wide grids, I guess for flooding purposes. Since the kids in the back seat were just looking at their screens all the time instead of singing or making conversation, I came up with an excellent game – before every grid I shouted ‘GRID!’ really loud. That’s it. Ok, it’s not that excellent, but still better than Eva’s idea to play yellow car. All the cars here are white, to be more visible in the desert. And, shockingly, when we did in fact see a yellow car just before reaching the airport, Charlie and I spotted it before Eva!
Speaking of cars, most of the cars we pass are camping vans. Just makes me want to make that my next holiday – go somewhere, rent a car or a van and set out without a plan, going from place to place on a whim, staying as long as I please, sleeping in the car… I’ll need to do that some time soon.

Now, did I mention how wonderfully warm it is here? +30 during the day and while the nights are quite cold, last night was actually pretty warm. I love warm evenings even more than I love hot days, so this was just perfect. Further, I don’t think I saw a single cloud during our entire stay in the desert. None. Some clouds are nice, but other than that I could really get used to this.

OK, back to the road. We took our single turn, this time to the right, and soon we arrived to Yulara and its tiny airport. It’s really tiny, has exactly two gates and about five flights per day. We returned the car, somewhat shocked at the final bill, as it turned out that they charge an extra mileage charge which we obviously incurred with our King’s Canyon trip. This was pretty much the most expensive car rental I ever had, they are really milking the fact that there are no alternatives out here.
Sydney’s Masonic Lodge isn’t particularly secret
The flight back was delayed, but the views were as great as before, and I almost finished another book on the way. We arrived to Sydney 40 minutes late and by the time we got to our Airbnb it was 8pm and all I could think about was curling up in bed. The flat is a bit manky, it’s still pretty noisy, and has white window blinds – the owner clearly doesn’t like sleeping past sunrise. I really don’t fancy city time again and frankly would have very much preferred not coming here at all, going instead directly to Cairns. It’s ok though, we can rest for a day, and Dee gets to catch up with some Sydney friends. Now I’m in bed, duvets and all, about to go back to my book. Goodnight!