Left Yulara (Uluru) at 8am and headed to Curtin Springs for breakfast. Had a big fry up along with the flies which have been pretty constant since we left Mildura. I tested the video camera on a mounting on the crash bars. Not bad but needs a bit of fine tuning. Will give it a real go tomorrow when we attack 150kms of gnarly dirt road. It was 228 kms from Curtin Springs to Kings Canyon resort and we arrived at midday. Our luxurious accommodation consisted of a cabin style room with four beds and shared ablutions just one level above camping. After dumping all our gear we high tailed it to Kings Canyon and proceeded to do a 6.2kms walk (in the middle of the day … mad dogs and English men!!!).
Here we are at the top of a rather steep climb … totally knackered.
Colin insisted on taking a picture of this poor unfortunate beetle that I was about to stomp on.
We nearly missed this lizard as he was the only sign of wildlife on the walk (apart from the beetle).
The walk through Kings Canyon took us up one side and along the top ridge. It was quite spectacular and there was a light breeze to keep us cool. There were many photo opportunities along the way like this one of me near a cliff.
The sign in front of me says “Don’t step back”!!!
I took the picture below to send to Rafe. We are going to photo shop Colin in as a pygmy so the tree beside him looks huge.
There has been a fair bit of rain in this area so much so that there are pools of water in the Kings Canyon creek. This is an artistic piece by Colin catching the reflections.
Once we got to the top of the ridge the walking wasn’t so strenuous so we had time to smell the flowers.
Pretty aren’t they?
There was a cliff face that looked as though it had just been created by the rock face falling away.
We were standing on a similar cliff on the opposite side so we decided to move back … just in case.
Colin had been rambling on about some prehistoric tree that had been found when he was last here in 1981 so was dead chuffed when he found it on the walk. It is a member of the Cycad family … whatever that is.
The fiendish park rangers put the markers out for the walk with all the wrong distances. We thought we had gone a long way when a marker would come up saying you have done 1km. Then there was a sign “1km to Car Park” and suddenly we were finished. Bloody masochists.
When we got back to our room we collapsed from all the exertions of our walk. At 5.30pm we perked up when the barmen arrived with a few cold beers for the viewing of the sunset over the Kings Canyon cliffs.
Like last night at Uluru the cloud got in the way of the sun just as it was setting. This didn’t bother Colin as he used the magic of his camera to make the photo look genuine. Off to Alice Springs tomorrow ….. whoopee!!!!!
Bit of a shift in tone with Alan doing the commentary! Great pics of King's Canyon, though.
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