Kings Canyon

On the second morning of our weekend to Uluru we were up at 3:30am to start our day trip to Kings Canyon. In Northern Territory terms Kings Canyon is just down the road (we took a solitary left hand turn the whole way) but still 300kms away!

I slept pretty well until sunrise and then continued dozing until we arrived at Kings Creek Station for breakfast. The station has cattle, camels and I suspect also makes quite a bit of it's income from the tour groups dropping by. I had a bacon and egg sandwich sitting in an open sided (former cattle?) shed. Pretty good it tasted too. I was interested that most of the workers on the farm were from Asia. It would not be my top destination for working Australia. Perhaps the money is good? You could certainly save a lot as there isn't anywhere to spend it! Or perhaps it counts towards the rural employment for getting a working holiday visa extension?

After we left the station there was approximately another 100km to drive until we arrived at Kings Canyon. More dozing!

We set off on our hike around the canyon at 8:30 and with temperatures due to reach 30 degrees I was pleased that it wasn't too hot a start to the day.

Our walk started with a 500 step climb from the valley floor up to the rim on the canyon. It sounds like a lot of steps, but thankfully wasn't too bad. I think all my running training had prepared me well!

Once we had reached the top of the canyon we followed it round in an anticlockwise direction.

There we some great views as we walked round the canyon rim. It was interesting to see the distinct layers of Carmichael and Mereenie sandstone that make up the canyon. Not a walk for the feint hearted there are (thankfully) no ugly barriers around the canyon and it's possible to get quite close to the edge as a result.

About half way round the canyon is the 'Garden of Eden' a small and sheltered water hole. There were a few people swimming but our guide told us the there isn't a spring and it is all collected rain water. There hadn't been serious rain in four months so it was pretty stagnant!

It started getting pretty hot in the sun as we approached lunchtime. We'd seen some fabulous views and seen something unique, but I was pleased to get back into the air conditioned bus.

After lunch at the Kings Canyon Resort (over price and average pizza) we headed home. On the way back to the Ayers Rock Resort we had a single stop at another cattle station which had views of Mount Conner, a very similar rock feature to Uluru.