Australia's Outback Alive with Colour this year...First glimpse of King's Canyon

KING'S CANYON/WATARRKA NATIONAL PARK, AUSTRALIA - It's the Outback. But not as desolate as you might expect.

They've had a remarkble amount of rainfall in the so-called Red Centre of Australia this year, and the wildflowers are out in force. A number of roads have been flooded, one not far from here was under two metres of water the other day after a big storm.

Michael at King's Canyon Resort tells me he spoke with an elder in one of the local aboriginal groups the other day and the man told him that white men have been coming to the Outback regularly since the 1960's and none had ever seen this much rain.

The flowers are pretty, for sure, but the folks at Thrifty Car Rental also added some colour by renting me  rather bright, flowery yellow Hyundai, which I"m sitting in now in the early morning dark so I can leach off the Internet signl in the hotel reception area, which isn't quite open. I think I can get a signal at the pub but it's a little early for that, even in Australia.

Michael showed me a great spot for photos last night, and I'm hugely grateful. Gave me a couple of good camera tips, too, which helped produce the images I'll have down the road in Star Travel.

Oh, speaking of the pub here at King's Canyon, I need to do a shout out to helper/bartender Rebecca Clement, who's visiting Australia after attending high school. She's from Elora, for gosh sakes, and met some Canadian girls while travelling in the Outback and decided to stay and make some money. She's a nice kid, and I got a picture of her so her folks will know she's okay, although she's on Facebook so it's not like she's incommunicado out here. She's only had a week at the job but says it's fun, and it's certainly an education!

Once again, maybe it's the Internet connections out here or something I dunno, but I can't load any photos into my blog right now. It's driving me crazy. So the only thing I can think of is to post them on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter under the username jbyers11. Not the same as viewing them here, but I"ll send four or five right now so at least they're there.

Looking forward to my hike this morning at King's Canyon, which we don't hear about so much in Canada but looks just as impressive as Ayers Rock/Uluru. Bye for now.