The Big Climb

 

Thursday 4 August 2022 – The Big Climb

Well an early start to the day at 6am when the alarm sounded.   It rained overnight and H&M had to wring out their bedsheets as they had left the hatch open over the beds. There were bigger than expected puddles around the van which I discovered in the darkness heading back from the toilets.  We piled into the cruiser in the dark and arrived at the Kings  Canyon car park  pre-dawn ready to tackle the Rim Walk. This involved over 800 steps at the start to get to the rim which was quite hard physically but the four of coped with it with a few stops on the way up we arrived ready for a stroll. Well it wasn’t like that at all as we spent the next 3 ½ hours rock hopping and scrabbling. There were a few puddles from the overnight rain but the rocks were all dry and it wasn’t unduly slippery. It was worth it as the scenery and views were spectacular. We were very glad to hit the concrete path to the car park and haul ourselves into the cruiser to get back to the vans.   Laundrywas the order of the day as had compiled a fair bit since Alice Springs.

Once the loads were in the washing machines L started the task of disconnecting the existing wiring to separate the sleeping battery and run the AC/DC charger cables to the battery. After a couple of hours L had that sorted only to find the sleeping battery had already come out of safe mode and was sitting there fully charged. Well a few expletives were uttered and all was not lost as L modified the wiring for better efficiency and carried out a number of tests and all seemed well as the previous sleeping battery was quite happily providing power. Not entirely convinced all is well as what happened didn’t make much sense so we will see what happens over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile Jenny had had a long hot shower and washed her hair and then a bit of a nap.  Larry made her a coffee when she awoke as we had missed out this morning because of our early start.  Luckily H&M are only a few sites away so that we could make our tired muscles stagger us across to their van for lasagne and veggies (we have a few to get through before we hit the SA border!)  An early start as M has inherited H’s cold and we have had a long and busy day.