Day 12 – 4/4/2011 – Agnes River Reserve to Mt Connor Lookout

Day 12 – 4/4/2011 – Agnes River Reserve to Mt Connor Lookout

What a lazy start to the day, it was a cool morning and I think the children took advantage of the fact that we had nowhere to go in a hurry!!.  They would not get out of bed until 9am even though I tried to convince them that mornings were the best time to be outside as it was cool and the flies and mosquitoes had not gotten out of bed yet.  What was up and about were some beautiful yellow Finch’s that were playing in the gum tree that we were camped under.

We hit the road around morning tea and I can confirm that the thunder box was a huge success!!!

We stopped for morning tea on the border of South Australia and Northern Territory, it is exciting to be entering the Northern Territory for the first time ever. I am really looking forward to the adventures that await us here.

Pete was very excited when he saw this speed advisory sign, I'm not sure how he thought we could even get close, on a good day with a wind behind us we night make it to100km/hr

Lunch was had at the Mt Ebenezer Station Roadhouse, this is a cooperative run by the local aboriginal people and they sell local arts and crafts.  We visited the art gallery but unfortunately we had to keep our hands in our pockets!! There were many paintings that I would have loved to have purchased to bring home.  It was also possible at the gallery to watch the women doing the paintings and Claudia was very interested in their paintings.

We headed off looking for our stop for the night.  About 1 hour down the road I saw if for the first time…….ULURU, it was huge I said the other travellers “oh my gosh I saw it” Pete says “what?”  I say “Uluru!!”  He says “no way, you won’t be able to see it from here!!”  I say ‘keep looking left” Zac then says “I saw it mum” Pete say “no you won’t be able to see it from here!!”  Then I said “look now there it is again – of course we can see it from here – you can see it from space!!”  Pete then saw Uluru for the first time, agreeing that it was big.

We have camped for the night at Mt Connor Lookout and from our camp site we have an amazing view of Uluru.  Across the road you can climb a big red dirt sand dune and from the top have a view of a big salt lake. The kids spent many hours running up the sand dune to then slide down on their bottoms!!

Once settled for the night I sat the kids down for some school work – yeah they moaned – it is moments like these I am so grateful I’m not a teacher.  Schooling on the road is horrendous and I can only muster about 1 hour every few days, not sure we will meet the school’s expectations!! Getting the boys to keep a diary is like pulling teeth!! Claudia at least gives it a go…..oh well the worst that can happen is I have to pay for tutoring when we get back to catch them up!!

Postscript!!

Well the joke is on me I fell for a very common tourist error…..the monolith that I can see is actually Mt Connor otherwise known as Atilla!!  Oh my when Pete found out he laughed for ages and my weren’t the kids annoyed as I had gone on and on and on about Uluru!!!  We found out from some locals who stopped for a smoke break, my they laughed when they realised that I thought the fabulous mountain before us was Uluru….it’s even the wrong shape….of course you can imagine Pete’s delight!!  But they reckon they’ll get a meal out of my story!!  I go to sleep tonight in an even higher state of anticipation as I thought Mt Connor was amazing maybe the real Uluru will take my breathe away.  Just for the record this is my second favourite camp spot for the night!!!

This apparently is a common mistake so I am not alone in this very funny error apparently amongst travellers Mt Connor is known as “Fool-a-ru”

Oh well maybe tomorrow!!