The Travelling Wilsons: Kings Canyon

Kings Canyon

Saturday 15.1.2011

We set off at 6 am to make our way to our next destination Kings Canyon.

We witnessed a magnificent sunrise on the way; it was so bright it was rather distracting for Colin driving with the caravan in tow.

Kings Canyon lies within the Gorge Gill Range which is 300 km north of Uluru, which means the people aiming solely for Uluru don't make it here, which is a great shame.

On our arrival we booked the caravan into the Kings Canyon resort which was rather nice, which is owned by the same company that own the Ayres Rock Resort however this one is nowhere near as big.

We drove down to the Canyon, but at almost 40degrees we could not contemplate trying to do the walk. We decided to leave it until very early the next morning.

The afternoon was spent in the van with the air conditioner going flat out, resting and catching up on bits and pieces that needed organising. We went down to the canyon to watch the sun set again absolutely magnificent! We then hit the pool and spent time chatting to some backpackers.

Sunday 16.1.2011

We set off at 5.15 with the caravan in tow, and arrived at the canyon to see the sun come up. We began the walk at 5.45 – the walk is rather challenging.

Kings Canyon is a narrow sliver of sandstone that plunges 328 feet into a valley of fern, water pools, and woodlands—a fertile, utterly surreal landscape that you'd be mistaken to overlook.

Firstly we had to tackle the trek up Cardiac Hill—the near-vertical ascent at the start of the Rim Walk—and stepped onto the expansive canyon rim. We then wandered along the meandering 6 km path, first stepping through a narrow pass between two boulders into the region dubbed "The Lost City"—Dali-esque mounds of sandstone that were once massive dunes, eroded to resemble enormous bee hives. Its ancient streets then led us further along the canyon surface, around wind-shorn rocks that looked like sandcastles pummeled by rainwater, to the edge of sheer 900-foot cliffs, and through rock formations.

Roughly halfway through the hike, we followed a series of wooden steps that took us down into an unexpected, lush realm known as the Garden of Eden. As we descended we saw a dense explosion of green ancient cycad fern, the spiny Spinifex, and the bone-white bark of ghost gum trees. Then a path leads to a permanent spring where we could take a swim but as we were on a strict time frame today wanting to get to Alice Springs, we decided not to swim although it looked very inviting.

The temperature started to really heat up once we were half way through the walk.

We then had to descend down the face of the canyon down rock steps which were not as steep as the climb up. The walk took us around 2.5 hours and was well worth the effort.

Back to the car around 8.30 am sore and exhausted and began our Journey to Alice Springs.

We arrived at Alice at around 2.30 pm and booked into the McDonnell Range Caravan Park.