Have a little bit more information about the woman who was killed by the crocodile. It was not at our hotel, but was instead At the Thornton beach near Daintree, the beach where we saw the black tipped shark and the driver/guide told us never to swim there. She and her friend had gone swimming at 10 o'clock at night. Very very bad decision.
We got up early the last morning of our last day in Palm Cove and caught a ride to the airport in Cairns. From there we flew to Alice Springs. I must say that almost everyplace we have been on this trip it has been raining. We have not had great heat or any problems except for spectacular humidity.
The next morning in Alice Springs, Troy, our Palestinian heritage man from Australia,  picked us up for the long drive to Ayers rock. First we drove for two hours until we got to the camel farm. It was too rainy to ride camels. Then we drove for another two hours until we got to the aboriginal art exhibit. Too expensive to consider.  Finally we drove another hour or so until we got to the campground at Ayres rock. We were there in time to watch a spectacular sunset while sipping champagne.  As the sun went below the clouds it got dark. Then it got bright orange again as it dropped below the clouds before it finally settled under the horizon.  Prior to the sunset we spent some time hiking around to different parts of the rock. The next morning we got up early to catch sunrise at Kata Tyuta.  Though smaller than Uluru (Ayers Rock), these 36 domes trail off into the desert in a spectacular line that may be even more impressive.  Mark hiked up and around and down the backside of the first few domes. I had stopped in the middle and then went back down,  and then back up to the middle, and then back down again. I did not want to risk the slippery slope on the backside.
  We spent two nights camping, somewhat. We actually had tents with beds and mattresses, pillows and sheets. We could have slept in a swag outside. But it looked like it was going to rain so we opted out of that. A swag is a big canvas bag which includes a blowup mattress, or foam mattress, sleeping bag, pillow and a lot of warm blankets all encased in mostly waterproof canvas.  I would've like to try that but in the middle of each night we had torrential downpours.    The Stars were amazing; no light pollution here!!
The last day we went to Kings Canyon, a lovely small eroded Valley. You can climb up to the top and walk around the rim but it's quite a steep climb in and has steep drop back down. Instead of making that climb I chose to walk up the middle of the canyon, much of it in a stream up to my knees. It was supposed to be dry, but then again, there was all that rain

Mark took the highroad I took the low road. Both of us saw beautiful sites. The rain cause us to have to retrace our drive back toward Uluru and Alice springs. We had meant to take a short cut on a long dry road through the desert, but the constant rain had caused the Palmer river to flood and we could not get across it.  That road was closed.  Even so, many places in the regular road had low spots which were flooded. We learned how to speed into the low spots after checking the meter depth sign and continue to accelerate all the way out so the tailpipe did not suck in the water and kill the engine. We got back to Alice Springs in another downpour and had a lovely dinner before crashing in bed. We got picked up about noon and took our next flight into Sydney. More on that tomorrow.