King’s Canyon

We woke up in the morning to a complete change in the weather. The rain of the night before had disappeared and the only evidence it had left behind were a lot of deep puddles. There was bright sunshine but it was accompanied by a strong bitingly cold wind.

We breakfasted, packed, checked out of our hotel and set off on the 320km drive from Uluru to King’s Canyon. Fortunately it is a really good road with a 110kph speed limit most of the way. We found the landscape to be varied and interesting - and constantly changing as the trip progressed. For the entire route we were surprised to see really dense vegetation with many trees and shrubs as well as good ground cover. Quite different from the barren desert conditions we had been expecting to see on this holiday.

Our first rest break was at a tiny speck of a place in the middle of nowhere called Curtin Springs. It comprises a shop, toilets, a couple of fuel pumps, a caravan park and little else. Still, it had some character and we were quite taken with the place. A real feeling of the outback. We then pressed on, fortunately still on excellent paved roads, and making just a couple more rest stops, before reaching our destination, the King’s Canyon Resort. We got there around midday, to be told that our room wouldn’t be available for another 2-3 hours. We were fine with that and decided to alter our plans and go directly to the main attraction which had brought us there, the canyon itself. It’s a 14km drive from the resort.

Visitors to the canyon have two walking choices. There’s the rim walk, which involves a steep climb up several hundred irregular steps then a 6km walk followed by some type of steep and hairy descent - see the photos of some typical steps. Both of us having long lost our mountain goat skills this option was never on our agenda. Option 2 is a comparatively flat walk along the creek bed at the base of the gorge, a 2.6km return trip. Even that was quite challenging in places, especially where the track comprised large uneven river stones. Nevertheless we made it safely to the viewing platform at the head of the gorge where we sat admiring the unusual vegetation and great scenery of steep gorge walls. The regular water flows make this a very lush area. Evidently there is a huge range of wildlife there, though aside from a few small birds we didn’t see any. Most of the time we were on our own, and it was great to be able to sit there undisturbed in the bright sunshine.

Late afternoon we drove back to the resort, checked in and unpacked, then rested for an hour or so before heading off to our next big event. This is a light tower show, held every night adjacent to the resort, and we were told we should be there for 5.30pm. A little earlier Brian had gone for an exploratory walk and realised how spread out the resort is. On one side of the ‘main’ road is the motel-type accommodation which in itself is spread out. Across the road there’s a decent-sized general store, a large caravan park and a big bar and restaurant. Rather than make the ten minute each way trek between our room and the site of the light tower show, we decided to drive.

It was still broad daylight and the viewing platform, well set up with tables and chairs, looked over a flat desert area towards an impressive looking mesa called Mount Connell. Our holiday package included wine and some canapés. It gave us an opportunity to taste small samples of indigenous foodstuffs including kangaroo and crocodile meat as well as green ants. Very enjoyable. After seeing the sun set on Mount Connell and it got dark the towers of light switched on. It is hard to describe the towers fully. Created by Bruce Munro, the sculptor who is also responsible for the magnificent Field of Light at Uluru, it consists of 65 round towers, each about two metres high. The towers themselves are made from clear glass bottles filled with strings of LEDs which are constantly changing colour. The effect is quite mesmerising but it is slightly less impressive than the aforementioned Field of Light. An interesting experience nevertheless.

We had talked about moving on from there to do a bit of stargazing in the clear sky, somewhere away from any lighting, but it would have meant getting in the car and getting some distance away from the resort. By then we were feeling quite cold after having stood around for quite some time so we took the easy option and made our way to dinner at the restaurant instead.Meer informatie