Kings Canyon

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Trip Start May 07, 2008 Previous
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  Kings Canyon, Northern Territory, Australia
Thursday, September 18, 2008

Hi everyone
 
Here are the directions to get to Kings Canyon from Uluru:
 
-         Drive away from Uluru
-         Take the first left
-         It's up there on the right.
This is a journey of over 400 kms.
 
Well, our barren, dusty drive led us to Kings Canyon Resort. A small but sprawling hub of wooden chalet-type rooms with on-site restaurants and bars. We hadn't booked as usual and the room they showed us was nothing special but when I slipped in that it was our honeymoon, well, they gave us an upgraded room with a big spa in for the price of the standard smaller chalet rooms

The Roadies

! Woohoo! The spa bath was set in its own window alcove so you could look out at dusty desert environment while you soaked in soft bubbles. How Deliciously Decadent, darling! All around the resort wandered Dingos which are like skinny blonde wolves. They're beautiful creatures but there are warnings everywhere to just be on your guard and to not invite them over or offer them food. Perfectly harmless if you don't start running away which can excite them to drink your blood.
 
For dinner you had a choice of either 'posh and crisp linen' restaurant or barbecue ho-down party place. Did we really need to think twice about this?! The latter was a massive barn type affair with picnic benches, a bar, pool table and a small stage. There was live entertainment by The Roadies. Basically a man on a synthesiser who also had a guitar strapped to him and a mad woman on the mic who provided all the sarcasm and wit and forcefully invited us rowdy drinkers up on stage to take part in numerous embarrassing and cacophonic singing! The barbecue was absolutely delicious. I had kangaroo steak with jacket potato - soooo good and a really great night.
 
The next morning, we made full use of the spa bath and soaked in it while the sun cooked our faces from the window. However, it wasn't quite as romantic or elegant as I am portraying. Bear with me...First of all, after checking the bath was clean, I then filled it up and poured in bubbles. Looking Good! Then I immersed myself into the kingdom of Froth. The water was scorching so I turned the cold tap on and as I swished the water around me, I felt this rubbery thing against my foot. I instantly thought "for frigging sakes, there's a flaming plaster in here!" It felt like those waterproof plasters when they're damp

David in the spa bath

. I stood up, disgusted, feeling for it under the water which is when I set eyes upon it. A small black thing floating past my ankle.
 
In approximately 4milliseconds and causing a tidal wave of about 4 gallons of water, I lept like a leopard from the centre of the spa to the bed screaming at the top of my voice "there's something in there! Something in there!" David came over to investigate and found the culprit. A ghecko!!!!!! I had had a bath with a flaming ghecko!! Emptying the bath of water, it lay on the bottom not moving surrounded by perfumed foam mountains, a surreal environment for it. It wasn't massive but probably as long as my palm. It was dead so David threw it outside to nature (David: I ceremonially... chucked the poor thing off the balcony for the Dingos). It must have been hiding in the spa vents or somewhere and the rushing water must have forced it out and then it drowned. Whatever its demise was I had had a bath with a ghecko and this provided poor David with some incessant ear-bleeding groans from me while I hopped around the room revolting at a dead reptile on my naked body. We did eventually have a ghecko-free spa and it was gloriously sumptuous.
 
So, we made our way to Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon is, as Lonely Planet describes it and I couldn't put it better myself, a yawning Chasm

Lois in spa bath

. From the car park you could either do the full Kings Canyon Rim walk which takes approx 3 hours (or 6 with me puffing "hang on...hang on" every 5mins!!) and this culminates in you looking down into the canyon below to see its full depth and beauty. However, we just didn't have the time to do this so opted for the gentler and quicker option taking you over massive dusty boulders, around heaven-high trees and past a rich and varied environment of razor-sharp and flowering shrubs. It was a fantastic environment. Also full of flies, so once again, my turban and shades look came out in force! It was fantastic to be down in the thick of the canyon's lush wildlife with tons of people, resembling tiny ants, metres above us. (David: It was a bit like Cheddar Gorge, but in the middle of the Outback and no cream teas at the bottom.)
 
We resumed our journey back to Alice Springs from where we would catch our flight up to Cairns the next day. In Alice Springs it's impossible to get a hire car with unlimited mileage. They give you 100kms a day for free but then it's 25cents a kilometre after that. Bearing in mind the trip to Ullaru is over 400kms on its own, it's easy to end up paying a fortune. Luckily we'd managed to increase our free limit to 200 kms a day and we had the car for 5 days - giving us 1000kms free. We left Kings Canyon with 910kms on the clock and we were a very very long way from Alice Springs. On the map, we found an unsealed road, called Ernest Giles Road, that would cut the journey distance by at least 200kms. An unsealed road is simply one that has not been sealed with tarmac but instead consists of stones and/or rough corrugated sand. It's not a popular road, nor is it a tourist drive of great scenic proportions but it's a fantastic shortcut back to the Stuart Highway which then takes you straight to Alice Springs.
 
However, driving on the unsealed road absolutely necessitates a 4x4

Kings Canyon

. It is by no means 'an easy ride'. It is approx 100km long and we kept our speed to 25km because it was like driving over a constant corrugated piece of steel. Your body shook and your voice resembled a darlek! Motion Sickness tablets would have been very welcome! Although the surface of the road was mainly sand and to touch, soft and fluffy, for some reason driving over it was incredibly tortuous. The road was wide, sandy and utterly deserted. (David: About as wide as the M1) The surrounding landscape was devoid of any human or mammal activity or habitation. It would have made a fantastic scene for War of the Worlds or something. There was some silver-lining clouds though: infrequent traffic signs: "Roadworks Ahead" or "Plant Crossing". However, no roadworks ever materialised nor workmen nor JCB's nor anything even resembling a roadwork in progress. Perhaps the signs were just to keep your spirits up, as if to say "you're not alone...". Unless they were actually talking about the road itself, like it was a 'work in progress'. We did see another car passing us. We slowed down and lowered our window to share a wave with him in passing. He passed us with a cursory wave and sped on leaving us eating his dust. Friendly chap. We could have been dying or bleeding to death!
 
There were no radio signals along this road nor any mobile signals. Had we have broken down, as we discussed in preparation in case it really happened, we would have had to just sit and wait for a passing car (which may have led to eating our own hair to survive, cars are that rare!) or attempt to walk the length of the unsealed road to safety in temperatures of approx 45 degrees sizzling heat..with no hat but several bottles of drink and bags of Skittles to get along on. It was like imagining a scene out of the film Misery. What if some mad woman from an aboriginal camp nearby found us and locked us up, subjecting us to months of hard aboriginal labour and pain? (David: Or sent one of us out to poach some porn) No one would ever find us again

At the end of the canyon

. Thankfully, none of this happened as David assured me repeatedly, but I wildly imagined the Worst Case Scenario and ran with it...for several hours...as I strictly limited myself to just one skittle per half hour. I was the sensible one.
 
We made our way...slowly and juddering along towards Henbury Meteorite Craters. A tourist attraction! In the middle of absolutely nowhere! However, seeing it justified our deafening roars of woohoo in the car as we jerked and skidded our way to a spot of possible human interaction. It also meant we were almost at the end of the 100km unsealed road and back to tarmac and other traffic. Henbury Meteorite Craters are basically 12 craters created after a meteorite fell to earth 4700 years ago. The largest crater is 180m wide 15m deep, now home to several trees and possibly snakes. Any fragments of the meteorite were taken away to an Alice Springs museum long ago, one piece weighing 46.5kg!! Apparently NASA astronauts came here to practice walking about on the moon in the 1960s. We parked our car in the deserted late afternoon sunlight, next to a dust-laden tourist information board before walking through a metal gate up to the craters, 10mins away. The craters were incredible. The largest one was absolutely breath-taking, to imagine a meteorite had fallen and created this void in the earth, so deep. The environment was quite scary. The land was vast, deserted, dusty, devoid of human habitation

Ooo look at the sun

. The nearest collection of shacks was miles away shimmering in the distance like a mirage. If you ever reached that town on foot, it may just disappear before you, teasing you. There was nothing around us. Nothing. We could not even see our car as it was parked just below a small hill we had to walk over to reach the craters. It was as if we had been dropped here and had to make our own way now. Where would you start walking? The sun was low in the sky, sunset was not far off. Soon it would be dark and the animals would start coming out to hunt for dinner. We may be dinner as we tried to reach safety. The silence was actually deafening. You heard occasional birds of prey gliding over you, preparing to swoop down on a rabbit but apart from that nothing. No other cars. No people. No cattle. No light aircraft. No kangeroos. Nothing. Just us and the dry, barren, endlessly massive, flat landscape all around us. At the entrance was a curling, yellowing visitors book which had been signed by some tourists. Where were these people? Where did they come from? Where did they go to? It was as if the world had ended and this dusty book was a piece of history. Really quite chilling (David: except it was 40 degrees). But we were fine. We got back into our 4x4, put some Michael Buble on, ripped open a bag of skittles and roared off like Mad Max in the desert. See ya.
 
As we edged our way closer to the Stuart highway we could see the tarmac shimmering on the horizon

Appealing!

. As for the last 5 hours, David was carefully picking his way along the less bumpy bits of the road, never going faster than 40 kms per hour. Suddenly a large white 4x4 with a trailer thundered past us, showering us with stones and dust. It slammed to a halt at the junction to the highway and two stereotypically dressed Aussies jumped out and put up another roadworks sign... David wound the window down as we passed: 'So, that's how you're meant to drive along that road then? - 'Too easy' was the guys reply.
 
Finally back on tarmac we made our way back to Alice Springs, late that night for our flight to Cairns the next day. Soon we would embark on our East Coast Drive through some of Australia's most beautiful coastal towns and beach resorts.
 
Love, us xxxxxxxx

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Rules! Rules! Rules!	Eggs!	Interesting!	Kangeroo carcass
..and here is the body!

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