4 Stray Katz: Uluru's bigger, but less popular, brother.

After an epic 8 hours in the car we arrived at the very impressive Mt Augustus (Burringurrah), apparently the largest rock in the world. It is twice the size of Uluru, covering over 4500 hectares, rising over 1km above sea level and measuring 8km in length. We were determined to bush camp and found a great spot on a dry river bed where we could still see the colossal rock and watch the setting sun change its colours. We even had a fire, only to cook on though as we certainly didn't want to sit around it as it had been 39 deg and the evenings didn't cool down until about 3am. With no power we didn't even have the luxury of our small fans so we resorted to wet tops and hair to try to get cool enough to sleep.

Anyway back to the rock. The next day we did the 49km drive around Mt Augustus and did several of the walks into gorges and dry creek beds to see some of the engraved rock. Burringurrah holds spiritual significance to the local Wajarri people and you can see how their ancestors would have found this place special. The nearby permanent waterhole also added to the area's appeal and it was named Cattle Pool for its use by drovers in the early 1900's. After our hot morning walking we spent the afternoon there swimming with Jackson having his day sleep in a wet hammock under some shady trees. It was here that the mouse saga finally reached the end (I hope anyway). So during the morning after we got back from each of our walks we had been pumping the air con, particularly the rear vents to cool the kids off. Well each time it started the smell was so bad I was convinced we had a dead mouse in the air con unit but could not quite believe one had squeezed inside the vent. So I was in the back of the car looking for something when I pulled a bag out and nearly vomited from the smell. I didn't look any closer but called the mouse slayer up to inspect. Well squashed down near the rear air vent was a rigid, very dead and extremely smelly mouse. After a lot of baby wipes and even more Glen 20 out car smells less like dead animal and more like the sweaty, dirty children smell we are used too. I am praying my mice ordeal is over!

The next morning Daniel got up super early and did the Summit walk, completing the 12km walk (that takes you up 650m from the car park and is meant to take 6 hours due to the rock scrambling needed) in only 2.5 hours. After he got back we packed up ready to go to Kennedy Range National Park, if only we could get out of this river bed...........