While in the Northern Territory we visited Watarrka National Park, home of Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon is about 300 kilometers from Uluru which is easily accomplished in a 2-hour drive. To a tourist the drive is spectacular because of the unique scenery, but I imagine could get boring quite quickly to a local. There is literally nothing between Uluru and Kings Canyon. You keep driving along, expecting to find a ranch, a town, or some indication of civilization but there is nothing.


The Lasseter Highway

When we arrived at the Kings Canyon Resort to check in, the receptionist warned me not to go down to the campground that night as the rangers were preparing to "take care" of the runaway dingo population. She also told me about sometourists, who the previous night, were walking along the footpath and saw a cute, little, brown snake, but it scurried away before they could pick it up. So they described it to the receptionist who did a quick google search, only to find out that they had nearly picked up a death adder. Of all the world's deadliest creatures, the top ten all live in Australia, with the death adder being in the top ten. A simple rule we follow is "don't touch anything"!




Watarrka National Park contains the western end of the George Gill Range. This scenic landscape of rugged ranges, rockholes and gorges acts as a refuge for many plants and animals, making the Park an important conservation area and major attraction of central Australia. Kings Canyon features ancient sandstone walls, sculptured by the elements, rising up 100m to a plateau of rocky domes.



At the beginning of our hike


Consistent with our way of vacationing, we decided to see Kings Canyon by taking an 8 kilometer hike up and around the rim. This included hiking up rugged hillsides, along the rim of the 200-meter deep gorge, through ancient rock formations, and a side trip to the Garden of Eden waterhole.





Later the afternoon at the end of our hike, we piled back into our Toyota Kluger and headed back to Uluru. Hundreds of years ago, early explorers imported camels to help with their journeys across the Australian outback. Many of these camels either escaped or were let go into the wilderness, and some still survive to this day. We had been told that on the day we arrived at Uluru that a few feral camels had gotten a bit too close to some tourists at the car park which made the tourists a bit uncomfortable, but no harm was done. Well wouldn't you know that on the way back to Uluru, while cruising the desert at 130 mph, we spotted a pair of feral camels hanging out near the road.







The Garden of Eden




Feral camels