The Red Centre Way - continued

Further along the Red Centre way we travelled. Kings Canyon was our next stop only a short drive from our bush camp. I couldn’t remember of my last visit here but dad was keen to remind me of the walks we did and the tanny tantrums I had. Kings Canyons and its resort is a very similar set up as Ayres Rocks; general store, servo station, restaurants, resort accommodation, and Caravan Park which they can charge pretty much whatever they want. Unpowered - $19 per person and Fuel - $2.19. Sigh, can’t really do much.

I was however very impressed with the national park. Drinking water available in many places, plenty of car parks, and nice picnic area...plus it was all free. We vouched for the shorter walk first through the dry creek bed of the canyon. Though short, it was breathtaking. Looking up 100m of sheer cliff faces exposing 400 million years of sand with lush greenery at its base is something worth driving the distance.

There was however, a 7km 3-4 hour ridge walk that Dave insisted on us doing. It wasn’t a pleasant first sight when all you could see were stairs navigating up a 100m cliff face. All those gym sessions purposefully ignoring the ‘stair master 3000’ had finally come to an end. Setting aside that negative, the rest of the walk was quite leisurely. The view though was worth every bit of effort. We could walk right to the edge of the cliff, walk down into gullies with natural waterholes, and yell “cooee” hearing the echo 4 times throughout the whole canyon. That walk would easily be in my top 5 rating itself similar to Cradle Mountain, walk to the most southern point in Australia, and Mount Warning. Definite must do for any travellers. 

After a night at the resort, we headed along the dirt road again (more corrugations) for Alice Springs. This town was a first for everyone. This stop in town lasted 4 nights in a caravan park which allowed us to full up on all essentials, for me to have extra long showers, and to generally explore the town. Alice is a nice town, very touristy, pretty much the hub needed for travellers. The caravan park however, had some issues. We booked two powered sites weeks ago but when we arrived they had doubled booked one of our sites. So after some deliberation, we ended up with two cars on one site and half our money back. We thought it was a great deal, peak season rates for literally more than half the price.

Another bonus was the local Camel Cup in town.

A day of very unreliable animals, horrible bookie odds, cheap as chips XXXX gold, and entertaining locals made for a fun Aussie outback day. We lost a bit of money on the Camel ‘Bruce’ and ‘Goldy’; Bruce at the starting line tried to go backwards around the track while Goldy was out in front but lost his rider half way around. Hmmm, we’re not betting people for that reason.



Good old Brucey