Kings Canyon, Northern Territory

We arrived into Discovery Parks Kings Canyon around 2pm on Wednesday.  It was quite a long drive from Alice Springs to here but it was all bitumen so for that we are grateful.  The park is massive and I think, relatively new.  It is well laid out for caravans with wide open sites and plenty of wide roads to give you plenty of room to back onto your site.  

There is a sunset deck and bar less than 100 metres from our site that overlooks the ranges and also quite an impressive light display that rivals, I guess, Uluru's "Field of Lights".  We headed to the sunset bar around 5.30 to watch the sun slowly sink to the west and no sooner had the sun set when up popped the moon - a super moon!  It was quite spectacular to look at it from our van.

Thursday morning we set the alarm for 5am so that we would arrive at Kings Canyon at dawn before the sun came up.  We weren't the only ones.  Another couple of photographers were there also.  I had read a lot about the Kings Canyon Rim Walk that is around 6km in length, and everyone of the comments said that if you can make it up to the top of the Canyon at the beginning of the walk you have done the worst of it.  They call it "Heart Attack Hill".  So I was a little worried as we made our ascent, and yes, it is steep with around 600 steps to reach the top, but not the worst I have walked!

However, once you have reached the top all thoughts of the ascent leave your mind as you look around you at the views.  It is simply a photographers dream.  The ochre/red/black colours of the canyon are around you and below you, and those colours change as the sun rises. It is stunning scenery at every turn of our hike. 

At around the halfway mark we come to the "Garden of Eden".  This is another unexpected magnificent place.  We descend quite a few stairs, cross a bridge, and make our way to the bottom of the canyon to reach this serenely beautiful waterhole.  We can almost hear the sounds of the aboriginal women and their chatter as they gather water from the waterhole.

Once we ascend the stairs back to the top we continue our journey around the rim, this time on the southern side.  I don't venture too close to the edges, indeed there are signs telling you not too, but Philip has a bit more courage than me.  We are more than 300m above the ground so it is a long way to fall.  We stop and have "smoko" on a seat overlooking the west and a plaque on the seat says that it is dedicated to a young lady that fell to her death.  Today there is no wind but it can get extremely windy this high up on the rim.  I also read that they close the walk when the temperature gets above 30 degrees.  We are fortunate that we started our journey early and we are walking in a very comfortable 20-24 degree temperature.

We finally start our descent with around 2 kilometres to go.  It is an easy gradual descent although we are very close to the canyons edge in lots of places.  You have to be sure footed but with the aid of my walking stick I have no problem and of course Philip is a mountain goat!

The carpark is a welcome sight as we have walked more than four hours with various detours and stops but I am so pleased we made the effort to start our walk early.  We had the walk to ourselves for the vast majority of the time so I didn't have anybody in the way of my photographs.  On the way back to our van we stopped at reception to see what availability there was for a 10 minute helicopter ride over the gorge as we thought it would be interesting to see it from another perspective.  Yes, they told us, 2.05pm.  Right!  We will be there!

I'm so pleased we did this flight.  Even though it was only ten minutes we got a terrific view of the gorge and our walk pathway could plainly be seen from the air.

To end what has been a perfect day we decided to go back to the canyon, just before sunset, to do the creek walk that is an easy 2km walk on flat ground.  It is again another perspective to look up to the top at where we had been walking.  It's a pretty walk that anyone of any age or ability can do.

And finally, on sunset, we said goodbye to this glorious place.  Philip and I voted the Kings Canyon Rim Walk the number one walk that we have completed. Yes it was challenging in places but the changing scenery was the thing that gave it number one place. It is just so beautiful.