Click to Zoom King's Canyon Desert Oasis

KINGS CANYON

Monday
November 24, 1997
024° 24' 29.4" S
131° 49' 04.4" E
By Rusty, Jane & Andrew

A Shear Rock Canyon Wall

This was our morning to "sleep-in."  That was until daylight because that was when the flies get up!! It was a wonderful night under the stars!  How dreadful it would be if the flies didn't go away!!  We climbed and explored the spectacular Kings Canyon and viewed the "Amphitheater", "The Lost City", the picturesque "Garden of Eden" and the breathtaking North and South Walls.  We thoroughly enjoyed the cooling waterhole in the Garden of Eden.   How refreshing!! The sun is searing hot by 7:00 a.m.  We were so blessed this morning by having some cloud cover till 10:00 or so.  Coming out we went down one area Drasco named himself - "heart attack hill."  We voted to go back to a petrol station to get cold drinks at this point and do lunch later down the road as we headed back to Alice Springs. 

Click to Zoom Group Picture

Click to Zoom King's Canyon

We took off on a 100 K section of "unsealed" road which was quite interesting at 80 kilometers an hour.  Drasco mistook our mini-bus for a 4 wheel drive I think   He really is quite good.  Again we were entertained by carefully selected music.  We searched for quite a distance for the right spot for lunch.  One with no "sleeping" cows in the area (dead ones), no flies from "left over water", trees for shade - you know those kinds of requirements.  We finally found our spot.  A different kind of "drive through"... just drive through the desert, pull in and set up for lunch.  It was pasta, beans, tuna, corn mixed together for a tasty cold lunch.  We had salad fixings and bread. We looked up at one point and there out in the middle of nowhere in the heat were five cockatoos watching us fixing all this. They were huddled together just observing this strange folks and didn't seem to mind us being there at all.  Washing dishes there was a new experience too.   We all contributed what water we had left into one igloo and washed there. Others of us dried the dished with dish towels that looked like they'd done some mechanic work by now!!  We took our group photo here and then headed out for the last leg back to Alice.  We did get back on sealed roads and the rattling quieted.  Our last stop was the Camel farm where we stopped on our way out.  We felt like we were "back home"... no camel rides this time but we walked out to see a baby they had on the grounds.  Found out while observing some big ones that it is quite rude to drink in front of a camel.  They will just try to snatch that Gatoraid bottle!!  If one will hold it just right they drink quite nicely. Entertainment for this last leg was provided by Maryland, from England.  She is a flight attendant with British Midlands and gave us our safety instructions and announcements. She dubbed Drasco "Captain Drastic".

Alice is a town of about 26 to 27 thousand depending on how many tour guides are in town.  This is the place where a regatta is held each year in the Todd River (we showed earlier)  It has made the world record book of the only regatta cancelled because of water.  It has only been cancelled once.

We arrived back at Melanka Lodge about 6:30.  Had a wonderful shower and did two loads of wash prior to meeting the group at 8:30 for dinner... Had camel and roo.   That's hard to do after seeing those wonderful animals out in the outback!  We have signed up for another three day tour at Darwin so we may be out of pocket for three more days.

Impressive

       A rest break      

Andrew with a view