The Alice, sunken cameras and the rain forest

I took a short flight from Uluru to the Alice, as we here call it, or Alice Springs to you Americanos.  The Alice is a good 4.5 hour drive from Uluru, but the rental car drop fees, plus the mileage add ons, made flying to the Alice and then renting another car a less expensive option.

When I got to the Alice, I found that I had actually forgotten to rent a car.  Later in the day, I went for a short hike in the East MacDonalds, a small mountain range 20km east of Alice. And while walking in a scrubby field there, I spotted and took a picture of this wheeless, broken down, rusted station wagon which looked like it had been sitting in place since the 50s.  As my camera got wet and ruined the next day- see below- you will have to imagine that rusted car, sunken car-

And that is all they had available to rent at the airport...

I also took a picture of this graffiti covered large steel cylinder- (imagine photo)-

 and thought to myself that this street art is definitely not ready for Melbourne, much less Valporaiso.  

Imaginary photos and virtual humor... maybe not quite the same.  

The next day I drove 2 hours west into the outback from Alice to hike in the West MacDonald range, which is truly in the middle of nowhere.  Actually, the Alice is in the middle of nowhere so this is a good deal west of nowhere.  While hiking there- quite by myself for some reason in the 90+ degree heat- I encountered a water hole which had to be crossed in order to continue on the trail.  While I welcomed the water hole, I did not foresee how deep it was and soon found myself up to my chest in water.  All of this might have been ok...if I had had the foresight to carry my camera and backpack over my head as I walked.  As it is, the camera has been on the fritz ever since.  A shame for sure, as it was a nice camera, and i have no pictures of that day at all.  It was nice swimming in that surprisingly cool water hole 120 miles west of no where, but the incident was a sore mishap with the loss of my camera.   

In any case, now left only with my phone camera, I flew the next day to Cairns on northeast coast, and the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rain Forest.  I journeyed into the rainforest in back of Cairns on this historic 19th century train to the authentic Aborigine village of Kuranda about 30 km into the mountains.   I could tell Kuranda was authentic because it was filled with souvenair shops selling all sorts of Aboriginal authenticity.  

You ride this old train up and then a gondola over the rain forest canopy back down- it was interesting and fun.  

They did have some interesting birds in Kuranda, however (there are different and colorful birds all over Australia)-

 And the drops on the Barron River which flows down from the rain forest to the coast were naturally impressive-

I felt like I was on the train on "The Bridge Over River Kwai".