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Published: January 4th 2010
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16th November - 18 November 2009
Kings Canyon
Headed off from Alice Springs on the morning of the 16th for the long drive south to Kings Canyon. I had a quick side trip into Rainbow Valley Conservation Park. Well quick as I could on a 23km dirt, bumpy road. Again another really hot day today. Rainbow Valley was stunning but I arrived in the middle of the day and I think you really need to visit here on sunset or sunrise to get all those magnificent colours in the rocks. It was still nice however and I am glad I did the side trip.
Back on the Stuart Hwy southbound I stopped in at the Erldunda roadhouse on the turn off for Uluru/ Kings Canyon. Honestly at this point I still didn't know if I was going to go to Uluru or Kings Canyon first. After a few k's down the road I decided that I would save the grand finalely of Uluru to last and so I turned right at the sign post and headed up towards Kings Canyon. It was a long drive into Kings Canyon and it was getting close to sunset, one of the
prettiest times of day. This made the country side look just magical and the final leg of the drive into Kings was gorgeous in the soft light.
I stayed at the Voyages Resort Campground, the closest campground to the canyon. There is also the Kings Canyon Station which I have heard is good as well. As I arrived late and it was almost dark when I was setting up camp I unfortunately failed to see the dingo warning signs that are plastered all over the park. So as I casually had some crackers and cheese and then wandered over to the camp showers to clean up before I started dinner I was blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding. 'A dingo stole my crackers!' And made a bloodly big mess of my camp site! I had left a box of crackers on my table and a bag of rubbish hanging off my van door. Well this dingo had a field day. Ate all my crackers and ripped apart the rubbish bag! When I got back to the campsite it was a mess! Bloodly dingoes!!!! There was rubbish, ripped cracker boxes everywhere and the dingo was still there! I had to
chase him away. Ok so lesson learnt and now I understand. There were dingoes all around the campsite. They know where to go to get a good feed!
Very very early the next morning I awoke to the most eerie sound you will ever hear, the howling of a dingo! It was literally right outside my van. As it was a hot night I had the van door open. This dingo was a couple of metres from me and he was eyeballing me! Wow talk about a close encounter. The howl of a dingo is both eerie and powerful and I laid there and watched as it called to its mate and off they went into the bush. And that was my wake up call, 5.30am, time to get up and start to get ready for the Kings Canyon Climb! The only time to start this walk is 6am and with the temperature expected to reach 43 degrees today, I was not going to start much later!
Everyone in the campground is up and moving and out of there by quarter to 6 if not earlier. By the time I got out to Kings Canyon, the carpark was
full with tour buses and vans. I started the walk at about 6.30am by the time I got my act together (I am rather useless this early in the morning). The walk is 6 km and takes about 3.5 hours to complete. The first part of the walk is a steep climb up a rocky stairway but once up the top it is all level ground as you walk around the entire edge of the canyon. The view and the cliff faces are without a doubt spectacular. I could not get over the steer cliff faces, the amazing sandstone formations and the beauty of this place. I was in no rush and as I had started behind everyone else I was lucky enough to not to be in a crowd of walkers. I took a million photos but was alittle disappointed that they didn't come up as nice as I had hoped. I think I need to play around with the settings on my camera to really bring out those beautiful reds and yellows in the rocks. Still you get an idea of just how magnificent this canyon is.
By 10am I had returned to the carpark which was
by now empty. It was already sweltering hot and you would be crazy to do any kind of walking now. After being up and about so early the rest of the day was spent in a daze by the swimming pool. A late storm came in and cooled things down abit which was welcomed. I went back out to the canyon on sunset to do the short walk along Kings Creek up into the gorge from below and with the afternoon light, the rocks blazed a gorgeous red. The flys are horrible and once again I was a net head but so was everyone else. I bumped into a couple who weren't wearing a net hat and they were being attacked by the flys. Lord of the flys they were. They drive you insane even with a net!
The next morning I was again up at dawn (no dingo howling at me this time) and back on the road to Uluru. The early mornings and heat had taken it out of me and I had to stop at a rest stop and have a catnap on route to Uluru or I was going to fall asleep at the wheel.
Driving along the Lasseter Hwy the last fuel stop before Uluru is at the Curtin Springs roadhouse. I thought I better fill the van up as I assumed it would be cheaper here then at Uluru! This is a note for anyone heading by road to Uluru, do not fill up at Curtin Springs, I paid $1.70 a litre at Curtin Springs and the fuel was $1.567 a litre at Uluru! The buggers, they got me. I'm sure there is a fuel watch website that I should have consulted.
So to sum up my Kings Canyon experience I will refer to the great Aussie film 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' and a great quote. As Guy Pearce's character Felicia said "My dream is to climb Kings Canyon in full drag queen get up" & Bernadette's response was classic "great, just what this country needs, a cock in a frock on a rock"! Got to love that film!
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