My husband and I started talking last night about the plans to go to Uluru, in particular about the trip itself. I showed him my research and how I split the drive in 3 8-hour days.
Discussed with him that going through Mildura we could go by Lake Tyrrell, which he hadn’t been to yet. How we’d sleep in Morgan at the end of the first day. The alternative would be going through Adelaide, which we were planning on passing through on the way back to get a few bottles of wine at the Barossa Valley.
It turns out that we had very different ideas of what the drive should look like: 8 hour days vs driving until we are tired. It was disappointing for both of us to discover what the other had been thinking about the drive.
To be fair, I like to organize and plan everything, he likes to see how things go. I hate staying confined in the same environment for too long, if he could, he would drive all the way without stopping.
And so we decided, yesterday, that we would no longer do the road trip. We are now flying to the Northern Territory to go to Uluru.
The reason wasn’t really the drive, although that was a discussion that did leave me a bit sad. It was because we want so much to see a lot of ther gorges and hiking trails that if we decided to go from Yulara to the place and back in the same day, it would be exhausting (remember me not wanting to be in the car for too long?).
Kings Canyon Walk, which I talked about in the previous post about the Urulu trip, is a small detour, in overall driving time, from Yulara to Alice Springs. It would be a total of about 7 hours driving, plus the hike somewhere around halfway between.
Close to Alice Springs there is also a lot of hikes and gorges to visit. I will post about them as the plan progress.
For now, all we can do is dream about the trip. We can’t book anything until the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
Off-Topic: I expected that, being a Valley, the Barossa Valley would have taken its name from the river that forms the valley. It is not the case. The main river that runs in the Barossa Valley is the North Para River. The name was given by Colonel William Light who fought in the Battle of Barrosa against the French. There was a clerical mistake when registering the area, and thus the misspelling stayed.
Off-Topic 2: My husband just signed up to be an Uber driver. It’s not that we need the money, because we don’t (but more money is always good). It is that he just likes to drive around and that gives him a driving chore (instead of driving randomly).
Note: I hold no right over the feature photo. It was taken from the site https://traveloutbackaustralia.com/kings-canyon-hiking.html