Day 15 King’s Canyon to Alice Springs

Day 15 King’s Canyon to Alice Springs

We were up at 4 again to begin the hike around the rim of King’s Canyon just before dawn.  We climbed the rocky path and steps, over 300m to the rim – quite strenuous and certainly not something to be attempted later in the day – and watched the sun rise over the opposite side of the canyon. 

We hiked 3 kilometres along the rim – learning about the geological formations, fossils, plants and animals we passed and stopping to take photographs….of the drop, of the different rock structures – and at the V-gap made famous in the film “Priscilla – Queen of the Desert”.  

We took the steps down into the “Garden of Eden” – a near rainforest on the canyon floor, full of birds, frogs and many other amazing creatures…..one of the trees – the cycad - is reportedly 500 years old – a very odd sort of tree…it has separate plants for the male and female.  It grows and sheds just one leaf each year….and, according to Brook, the male is only mature after age 300.

Brook was amazed at the amount of water in King’s Creek and the waterfall that is sacred to the Luritja aboriginal people (It is the “Men’s Place”.)  He said that the waterfall is usually at most a trickle – but it gushed into the pool, so deep that that signed requesting tourists not to swim was completely submerged.  We rested by the pool, drinking plenty of water and eating the biscuits Brook had brought. 

From the pool, we climbed the steep steps to the eastern rim and walked the 3 km back towards the canyon opening.  At one point we could see where the sandstone had slid away – a white scar in the otherwise iron red cliff face.  In another section, Brook warned us to walk away from the cliff edge and showed us the fault line where another section is preparing to fall away.  Some young tourists without a guide were very near the edge at this point….Rob and Kelsey (a young English girl in our group) shouted at them to move away from the edge - - but they made rude gestures back, the ‘immortality’ of youth…..  Only 4 weeks ago one young tourist who did not obey her guide fell to her death at our final stop at Kestral Falls - - only 1 km to go - - and we carefully paid attention to our guide’s instructions as we turned onto the last section: a downhill rocky path, narrow at the top but widening out to the bottom…

It was a spectacular walk – I would definitely say the highlight of this section of our trip – 2 slight problems….first was the heat - - By the end of the walk we were all on the edge of heat exhaustion despite the early hour, 2 litres of water we had drunk, hats and sun cream.  The second was the lack of toilets of any kind…can you imagine having a coffee and 2 litres of water but then no toilets for 4 hours???? Kelsey and I got very used to finding convenient bushes!

We returned to our camp where Cindy had prepared our final lunch together - - lunch at 10:30 am??? – and we set off on the 6 hour drive back to Alice Springs, stopping only 3 times….

Our first stop was at a roadstop with a very friendly cow and a café with excellent iced milk ‘milk shakes’ that supports local aboriginal children to attend school to improve their life chances.  The second was at the hat tree…..we had a group photograph, but I don’t think anyone actually left his/her hat – or shoe – or sock…. And the third was at Mt Ebeneezer roadhouse where there is a good display of aboriginal art for sale.

We said farewell to our travel companions as each was dropped off at the appropriate hotel or hostel and, when it was our turn to be dropped off, checked back in to our Alice Springs hotel and collected the luggage that we had stored.  All thoughts of swims, walks, fine dining were long in the past….we showered, ate a picnic in the room and fell into bed exhausted…..