Sunday, 5 January 2014

Kings Canyon - Hard and easy walk

Hi,
I am not a morning person at all and getting up at 3am (this time really exists??? Aussies call this stupid hour) certainly makes me grumpy. But we were determined to not miss our coach at 4am which will get us to Kings Canyon. After a three-hour-drive where I slept a bit more we reached Kings Canyon Station where we ate some breakfast before we headed to Kings Canyon itself.
The two guides would each guide a group of people but down two different tracks. The Rim Walk is the far more difficult one with a length of 6km and having to climb 500 natural steps to the top of the 160m high Canyon. This is considered a difficult walk, exposed to the sun most of the time and not suitable for unfit people. You also have to carry at least 3 liters of water with you which the guide checked before you had to sign a waiver and could join the tour. The other Creek Bed Walk is a lot easier, you stay in the canyon and it is only 2.6km long. I did not feel too well and decided to do the easy walk together with nine other people whereas Markus went up the Rim Walk with the other 26 folks.

We both enjoyed our walks and saw a lot of new things in the Outback environment, learned about the geology of Kings Canyon and watched our steps. Markus took the camera with him whereas I took pictures with his Smartphone. Here are some impressions of Markus Tour.










 And here are some of my tour.







At one point the Rim walkers came to the edge of the canyon and spotted us on the ground. Here are the pictures from below and above.




At 12pm we all met up at the Kings Canyon Resort which is not nearly as nice as the Ayers Rock Resort and had lunch there. I chose the Camel Burger! And it was really good, I would eat that one certainly again.


On the way back to our resort we stopped for some photos of the Mount Connor and one of the smaller salt lakes around this area.



Then we also stopped at the Curtin Spring station for some pictures of emus and parrots. Along the three-hour journey back we got told some more stories about the history of the area, some Australian songs were played and we watched different clips about fire cyclones, the gold fever and other bits of pieces of the Outback to get an idea of how much more there is to the Outback then red sand, some strange rock formations and wild animals.
When we arrived back in the resort at 5pm we were certainly exhausted and had again a lot on our minds to think about. We had dinner and got our belongings ready for the next day. As you might have noticed we never stayed in one place in Australia for more than three nights. And so we have booked our flights the next day to get to our next stop: Melbourne!
Yours Kings-Canyon-visiting Stefanie

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Have your say now! Would you do the same thing or would you do it differently? Do you have any travel tipps for me for my onwards travels? let me know!