Kings Canyon – Watarrka #1

We left Uluru and Yulara looking forward to spending some time at Kings Canyon, or Watarrka, it’s original Aborigine name. It’s my third visit here, my first was with Marg in 1990 when there were few facilities and you could camp near the gorge. I remember we were in a two man tent (maybe I should say a two person tent) and the wind blew so hard overnight that we had almost as much sand inside the tent as outside. This time we are staying in the caravan park away from the gorge which is the only place you can camp nowadays. It is an extremely well run camp with lots of amenities and they have covered the sites with crushed rock so you are not tramping red sand everywhere. On the first evening we watched sunset on the George Gill Range from the campground.

Adjacent to the park they have set up a light tower display that you can walk through while music is being played. You have to pay for this privilege so we chose to just observe from our campsite.

So next day it was off on the Kings Creek walk which follows the creek that cut its way through the rock to make Kings Canyon. It was a really beautiful walk, one of the best, through wonderful bush on a rock path that had been arduously assembled by the workers making the walk a very easy one. The bush surrounding the walk was in top condition from the recent rains as the following photos will show.

We had chosen not to do the rim walk around the top of the canyon, the 500 steps to start the walk put us off, I have done it twice before and it is an arduous climb followed by a 4 hour walk. These are the steps that start the walk.

I will let the photos of the Kings Creek walk talk for themselves about how beautiful the walk along the creek was. The first photo is of the first part of the walk which was on a smooth paved surface.

In this photo you can see three people on the top of the gorge and the bridge that they walked across to get to that vantage point. The flowering plant in the foreground is a Holly Grevillea.

At the end of the walk the National Park people had built a wonderful set of three viewing platforms from which to view the valley ahead, they had even built the deck around a big rock which was a feature in itself, apart from the stunning view.

The sun was in an awkward spot to allow me the get a really good photo but this was the view at the end of the walk.

The parks people had even added some birds to the railing of the viewing platform to add to the experience.

Here is another view from the end of the walk.

Along the way there were many wildflowers in bloom and the following are a selection.

The tiny pink flower on the left produced the red berries shown on the right. It was quite windy on the day so Deen often had to steady the stem f the flower so I could get a reasonable photo

The flower on the left is a Bush Tomato flower which produces an edible fruit, but there are a number of similar flowering plants that are poisonous so care is needed before eating the fruit. The flower on the right is Mulla Mulla which was growing at our picnic area.

So after the walk we moved to the Sunset viewing picnic area where there were gas BBQs for lunch. The picnic table was under cover in a peaceful setting where we were the only people enjoying the facilities. A photo of Deen and I on the walk to finish this blog.

If you would like to receive a email each time I publish a new blog enter your email in the box below and click Subscribe.