Day 7 & 8 Kings Canyon
Friday 20 & Saturday 21 September
Set out for Kings Canyon which was a long drive. We stopped at a couple of highway “road houses “ which feed, fuel, and accommodate travellers. They are a hangover from the old days in terms of location but nowadays provide fair dinkum Aussie outback facilities. There’s nowhere else to get fuel so need to keep a close eye on the fuel gauge and plan ahead. Erldunda road house has a claim to fame as being the centre of central Australia.
Made a small 15km detour on a dirt road to see the site of the Henbury meteorites strike. There were large craters 10's of metres across apparently caused by meteorites the size of large barrels (but travelling very fast!)
Made it to Kings Canyon after what seemed ages just on dark. Next day we were up early for Phil to walk the canyon rim and get the early light. The walk is moderately strenuous and gets closed if temperatures go above 36. This day was cool in fact chilly. Had to wear a jacket for most of it. There were heaps of signs reminding people to stay on the tracks and keep away from the edge of the canyon - you can see why from the photos. Apparently this hasn't been obvious to everyone in the past and there has been more than one person fall to their death after incautious climbing or just trying to get "that cool selfie".
Janet didn’t do the rim walk but another shorter one along the canyon floor and followed that up with a helicopter ride to get a birds eye view.
We stayed at the Kings Canyon resort. It was nice but could have easily been better (for eg the toilet flush mechanism broke in the wee hours which I guess happens sometimes but had to ask 4 times for it to be fixed). Enough said. It is no doubt hard to get staff in such a remote place so those that are there tend to be under pressure!
Set out for Kings Canyon which was a long drive. We stopped at a couple of highway “road houses “ which feed, fuel, and accommodate travellers. They are a hangover from the old days in terms of location but nowadays provide fair dinkum Aussie outback facilities. There’s nowhere else to get fuel so need to keep a close eye on the fuel gauge and plan ahead. Erldunda road house has a claim to fame as being the centre of central Australia.
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| Erldunda road house girl. |
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| Where part of the meteor hit (some considerable time ago). |
Made it to Kings Canyon after what seemed ages just on dark. Next day we were up early for Phil to walk the canyon rim and get the early light. The walk is moderately strenuous and gets closed if temperatures go above 36. This day was cool in fact chilly. Had to wear a jacket for most of it. There were heaps of signs reminding people to stay on the tracks and keep away from the edge of the canyon - you can see why from the photos. Apparently this hasn't been obvious to everyone in the past and there has been more than one person fall to their death after incautious climbing or just trying to get "that cool selfie".
Janet didn’t do the rim walk but another shorter one along the canyon floor and followed that up with a helicopter ride to get a birds eye view.
We stayed at the Kings Canyon resort. It was nice but could have easily been better (for eg the toilet flush mechanism broke in the wee hours which I guess happens sometimes but had to ask 4 times for it to be fixed). Enough said. It is no doubt hard to get staff in such a remote place so those that are there tend to be under pressure!
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