Wow.
The road to the Kings Canyon resort follows the MacDonnell range for hundreds
of kms. Cows, Kangaroos and camel carcases now litter the side of the road like
vagrants waiting for the hangover to cure.
Wow.
The road to the Kings Canyon resort follows the MacDonnell range for hundreds
of kms. Cows, Kangaroos and camel carcases now litter the side of the road like
vagrants waiting for the hangover to cure.
The resort is pretty well set up - bar, restaurant, 2 pools, 250 odd rooms, hundreds of caravan and tent sites and hundreds of budget rooms or dorms. This place is big! It used to be a cattle station, situated just 10km from the Kings Canyon. The weather has now warmed up a little - it's now over 30C each day. I think it was 34C when we arrived. I tried to convince Kim to do the same Canyon walk James and I did before, but she was happy to see the photos - maybe a little wiser than some!
I set out at 7am for the walk - 3-4 hours it read. It begins with a 'difficult hill climb' and is moderate after that. well the hill is pictured to the left with a close up to the right. See the people climbing the hill? The hill should be called heart attack mountain! Talk about unfit, I'm glad there were no pensioners behind me as they would have passed me half way up the hill! To be fair, everyone found it hard. Come on! I know everyone else found it as hard as I did, right!?
So,
once I got to the top, it did become moderate. The view was pretty much instant.
After another 200m walk, you come to a clearing over looking the side of the
Kings Canyon. Wow. Enormous sandstone walls sweep down to the tree lined river
bed below. It made my feet sweat just looking at someone else getting close
to the edge!
The
walk takes you down into the canyon to the 'Garden of Eden'. 
There
used to be a log over the water (in the right of the photo) which would allow
you to go around the corner and get a photo looking along the canyon, but the
log has long gone and only the insane get in this black, cold water!
Walking
back up the canyon you get the full impact of hundreds of 'domes', which look
like old tin army hats. The sand stone has been eroded by the wind and rain
to create an amazing landscape.
Our caravan was parked opposite the National Park, offering us a fabulous view over the MacDonnell range as the sun set on the opposite horizon.
Kim and I then did the more leisurely walks the following day along the base of the canyon and at Kathleen Springs. In the evening we watched the sun go down and the changing colour's of the MacDonnell's then kicked back with a couple of brothers, Paul and Anthony, traveling to Darwin.
