Just One Lousy Rabbit

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Today’s plan is to hike around Kings Canyon. Issy’s opted for a rest day so it looks like I’m on my own.

But first I need to survive breakfast. Elderly bus people are packed in here again, and chaos reigns supreme. As was the case last night I struggle to find anywhere to sit, and the queue for the eggs is almost out the door. I wouldn’t have thought it was that hard to operate one of those hotel type conveyor belt toasters, but these guys certainly seem to be struggling. There’s half a loaf worth of slices backed up in there and no one seems quite sure how to extract them. I hope someone figures it out before the whole place catches fire. Eighty-five something lady from Florida doesn't look overly happy about the long queue for the coffee machine; she tells me she doesn’t have a lot of patience before she’s had her morning caffeine fix. I thought I read last night that the total population of the 70,000 square kilometre area around here (note to Ms Florida - that’s bigger than your entire home state) is 185. That can’t surely include any bus people. Not that I counted, but there look to be more than 185 of them just here in the barn. I hope they’re enjoying themselves.

The six kilometre loop walk around the Canyon starts with a 100 metre near vertical climb up 500 or so rocky steps onto the north rim. If I didn’t realise I was awake before I certainly do now. The views down into the Canyon and west out across the desert are spectacular. The topography is totally different to anything we’ve seen in the MacDonnell Ranges, Uluṟu or Kata Tjuṯa - it’s all orange-yellow sandstone in horizontal layers. The track continues through an area known as The Lost City where the rocks are all in dome-like formations. Next up there’s Priscilla’s Crack which, as the name suggests, featured in the iconic movie “Priscilla Queen of the Desert”. Then it’s up to Cotterill’s Lookout for ridiculously stunning views over the Canyon’s sheer vertical 300 metre high walls. There are signs everywhere warning that taking a tumble over the edge “could cause injury” … now there’s a surprise. Next up‘s a series of steep wooden steps which lead down to a bridge across a narrow upper section of the Canyon and on through to the so-called Garden of Eden, a large rock pool in the base. Then it’s up more wooden steps and on along the south rim for yet more stunning views across to the opposite face. It just doesn’t get any better than this. Breathtaking. Even worth surviving breakfast for.

As we sit on our balcony relaxing we’re excited to see an animal run past …. well semi-excited. It would have been more exciting if it had been a native, but no, it was a rabbit. We’re starting to get a bit concerned for our native fauna. We saw a couple of emus right after we left Port Augusta, but that’s been about it … well excluding flies, we’ve seen a few billion of them. What’s happened to all the kangaroos. I thought they’d be out here in plague proportions, but we haven’t seen a single one since we left home, four thousand odd kilometres ago. I probably should qualify that - we haven’t seen a single live one; there’s been no shortage of dead ones lying in bloody pieces on the bitumen. We were told there were hordes of them at the Alice Springs Desert Park, but we didn’t see any there either, and they were in captivity. So since we’ve been in the Territory, all we’ve seen in the way of mammals is one lousy pest rabbit. What’s our country coming to.

Tonight we’ve booked a walk through the so-called Light Towers, a sound and light installation designed by British artist Bruce Munro, the same gent who was responsible for the Field of Light installation at Uluṟu. This one’s only been up and running for less than year. We’re told it comprises 69 two metre high towers, each made up of 216 glass bottles with fibre optic cables running through them. Each tower has a speaker in it, playing a haunting acapella tune sung by a choir from 69 different countries. The 69 thing‘s apparently got something to do with the supposed earth’s heartbeat. As was the case at Uluṟu, the colours of the towers change constantly. We’re free to roam through the installation … with the proviso that if we feel grass under our feet it’s probably time to turn around before we get lost in the bush … in the now pitch darkness … which seems like sound advice. It’s an unusual display, and we agree we‘ve probably enjoyed it slightly more than the Field of Light, which we’re attributing at least partly due to the music.

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