The long road to Kings Canyon

After a short hop from Adelaide to Alice Springs, we were on the road again. This time the road was over 450 kilometers long and pretty much dead straight.  Ming made a rule early on.  No puns.




It could easily be over 100 miles between gas stations, so without some careful planning you could be stranded like this guy:




When there is a gas station it might be filled with creepy animal sculptures 1000x real size.




The scenery for most of the ride is monotonous shrubbery. As we started nearing Kings canyon, however, things got interesting.




It began to get hazy outside and pretty soon we were smelling smoke. Turns out that just a few days earlier this entire road was closed due to fires.





This shot makes you wonder how something as seemingly innocuous as a road affects the normal life-cycle of the native vegetation.




The road also provides a home to one of Australia's weeds, the softball sized Paddy Melon.




In case you forgot sometime in the last 400 kilometers:




Made it to Kings Canyon in time to see the sunset.




There was a nice boardwalk not far from the restaurant.




Ming discovered the sunset mode on her camera.




We went to bed early to rest up for our long walk around the canyon rim tomorrow morning.

Location:Kings Canyon, Australia