King's Canyon & Alice Springs

The week started with a shift from Uluru to King’s Canyon which are very similar desert  campgrounds.  At King’s Canyon we were lucky enough to get a good site in the shade under a large gum tree looking straight out over the ranges containing the Canyon. The sunset view of the range was better from our van than from the lookout platform a short walk from the campground.  There has been a major bush fire through the region recently which has stripped most vegetation back to bare red sand hills and wiped out the Kathleen Springs parking and viewing area which is now closed.  We set off early on the second day and managed the ‘Rim Walk’ which is a 6.4km walk around the top edge of the canyon.  It is a 3 to 4 hour difficult walk and we were satisfied that we saw it all.  The scenery is unique with large slabs of sandstone fractured into cube shapes and then weathered into domes.  There are great views into the gorge from several lookouts and the ‘Garden of Eden’ gorge side walk is very pretty given the surrounding desert.  This is a long narrow side gorge into the main canyon and has water along most of its length with large cycads and beautiful white gums.  There is also a large swimming pool at the junction with the main canyon which has developed from another fault line at 90 degrees to the Garden of Eden gorge.

Mt Connor - often mistaken as the first view of Ayers Rock but still 150kms away

Ranges containing Kings Canyon from campground

Half way up the rise to the top of the Rim Walk

Walking on the edge

At the top and enjoying the shade

On the Rim with the campground just above the front foot

A dome and the red wall on the opposite side of the canyon

On top of a Dome

Garden of Eden - side gorge to King's Canyon

Weathered cubes/domes up top

Overhanging wall - last significant rock fall was in the 1930's

cute little Holly Grevillea

Cycad measured at over 400 years old

Next morning we were happy with a much shorter walk along the Canyon floor amongst the beautiful red boulders and white and grey gums.  We also saw more cute ‘Holly Grevillea’ bushes which as their name suggests have stiff ‘holly’ leaves and miniature red grevillea flowers.  Despite catching up with some very friendly campers again we elected to set off early Monday afternoon and free camp along the road towards the Alice.  We got a couple of hundred km’s under our belts which left ‘only’ 310 km for Tuesday.  We met up with Roger and Caroline from Maitland who we have seen at a couple of camps since the roadside free camp on the border and also chatted with fellow vanners from Moranbah and Gosford, which made our stay very enjoyable.

Start of the bottom of canyon walk

We over nighted at another roadside free camp on the way into Alice Springs.  It had good shade and clean bagged bins and we were able to camp well in off the road so the traffic noise was negligible.  The flies however were the worst we had ever seen; even thicker than at Cecil Plains in summer.  We have been buying diesel in ‘just enough’ amounts lately as the price has been up a bit. $2.03 at Uluru, $2.33 at Kings Canyon, and $1.98 at Erldunda on the turnoff has made us aware of the cost of travel.  We are happy to be averaging 14.63 litres per 100km over 51,500km since we left Brisbane in August 2011 towing the van with our worst leg being 21.1 ltrs/100km (into a howling wind) and our best 9.9 ltrs/100km (without the van on around the Eyre Peninsula).

Alice Springs is a big town and has changed a lot since I last saw it.  It has all the facilities including indoor pool and a good well lit footy stadium, plus all the shops and takeaway food joints of course.  It also has a very good Golf Course with 18 holes built around the hills in amongst a suburb of very nice new homes.  The casino is in the same suburb.  The course is in very good condition with smooth large greens and good bunkers with the red ranges in the background of each hole.  A trip out to the old Telegraph Station reminded us again how tough the pioneers of these parts had it.  A single wire telegraph line was run from Adelaide to Darwin using 36,000 wooden hand cut poles in less than 2 years in the 1800’s including 5 repeater stations along the route.  This was joined to an undersea cable from Darwin to Asia and on to Britain and cut the communication time from 3 months to 2 hours.  Operators manned the repeater stations 24/7 and when a message came through in Morse code, it was copied and re-sent on down the line, one message at a time, one direction at a time.  The diaries tell of the heat, the cold, and the flies, and the supplies once every few months.

The Telegraph Exchange - note 9 wires - 1 in, 1 out, 7 local.

We spent a full day out amongst the West MacDonnell Ranges with stops at most gorges and tourist sites.  Simspons Gap, Standley Chasm, Ellery Creek Big Hole, Ormiston Gorge, Glen Helen Gorge, Mt Sonder lookout, and the Ochre Pits were all visited and were all impressive.  The water and lush growth along the gorge floors together with the beautiful white Ghost Gums made for some pleasant viewing after the desert scenes we have become used to.  The walks are all well maintained.  The colours of Standley Chasm in the noon sun and the contrast of red rock, dark water and white ghost gums was very memorable.  There are campgrounds at several gorges and our pick is Ormiston Gorge. It has a small kiosk and a short walk into the wide sandy Finke River with red cliffs and a large waterhole.  We had afternoon tea at Mount Sonder Lookout which is just west of Glen Helen Gorge and has great views of the ranges north and south with the prominent peaks of Mt Sonder (1,380mASL) in the west and Mt Giles (1,389mASL) to the east.  They are very impressive peaks and the long ranges running east west clearly demonstrate the faults where the earth’s crust cracked and was pushed up onto its edge many moons ago.  The Finke River runs through just below the lookout and has a large waterhole and green reeds/grass surrounding it following recent rain.  The Ochre Pits where the aborigines have taken the different coloured ochres for painting for tens of thousands of years is another example of horizontally laid down beds being pushed into vertical layers.  A creek has cut through the beds and the cliffs are beds of very pretty colours from pure white, through light to bright yellows, and on to oranges and reds where iron has washed through and rusted.

Simpsons Gap

Standley Chasm just pre-noon

Standley Chasm walk in

Ghost gum that got tired and lay over

Ellery Big Hole - popular swimming hole but cold!!!

Glen Helen Gorge - 9 species of desert fish live in this gorge

West MacDonnell Ranges over the Finke River

Mt Sonder

Ormiston Gorge swimming hole

Another impressive gum

Ochre Pits

We have spent a quiet day in camp today with the sewing machine back in action and a game of golf enjoyed.  Tomorrow we head east for another days drive.

Up the centre...

We have covered some distance this past week and it seemed that there was a lot of nothing in between a few places. However, upon reviewing our photos we have seen a lot.

<<< Heres a tip :-- If you just like looking at the pictures, click on one to enlarge it and scroll through the pictures only >>>

We have driven over 1,700 kms this week and if we hadn’t turned off into Woomera and Coober Pedy, we still would not have been through a town.  We passed through flat barren gravel plains, passed salt lakes, through the stark red and white coastline of the inland seas of old that made the the opal area, and into the rich red sandy dunes around Ayers Rock / Uluru. 

Woomera was our first break and is in a great place for a rocket and weapons testing facility.  The town looks deserted with whole buildings boarded up.  There is obviously no research or testing going on at the moment.  There is an excellent display of planes, rockets, and missiles spread over two blocks on opposite corners near the info centre.  There are all sorts of successful rockets and also piles of twisted metal recovered from the desert from the not so successful ones.  There is also a great display in the Info Centre.  

island in a salt lake

Woomera test missile

missile park

more missiles

roadside free camp

We free camped on a roadside parking area that night and were well off the road, so it was quiet enough to hear the rain.  Our next day saw us into Coober Pedy where they were all smiles after half an inch of rain and a much cooler change.  The opal business looks slow with very few new cars or machinery visible and more shops selling opal than there was people buying it.  About half of the town lives underground or more correctly in the ground.  The opal fields are spread around the escarpment which is the eroded shoreline of the inland sea.  Miners, and home builders, simply burrow into the face of the escarpment and create a series of tunnels or rooms in under the plain above.  As most of the escarpment has been mined, there are now vertical tunnels being bored all over the upper plain with the pure white spoil being deposited in cones all over the red rocky landscape.  Garry went on an underground mine tour while Carol checked out the shops and selected a charm with nice opal for her Pandora bracelet.  On the way out we had a quick scratch for opal in the public noodling area and came up with a nice little chip with good colour for a keepsake.  We noticed that there were kangaroo tail pieces with ‘fur on’ available in the smallgoods section of the supermarket.  The Serbian Orthodox Church is a very impressive newish underground church on the edge of town with very pretty stained glass windows on the outside wall.  They also have a nice garden leading up to the front door made up of vegetables and fruit trees nourished by waste water.  The golf course is also interesting with black tar sand ‘greens’ on white barren plains.  They are proud of the fact that they are the only golf course in Australia without a blade of grass.

looking back down the 9th 'fairway' at 'Royal' Coober Pedy G.C.

Impressive 1.2m diameter shell fossil

underground lounge room/kitchen

Shovelling for that big one they missed

Entrance sign - full size mine vacuum pump

desert scenery at the Breakaways

these 2 mounds are called the Salt & Pepper

Next night was spent in a big bitumen roadside parking lot on the SA/NT border.  The big bitumen bays were good and there was a toilet but it badly needed a stiff breeze.  We ran into 3 guys from Mackay, 2 on dirt bikes and in in a landcruiser ute.  Turns out the bloke in the ute is Shelley’s husband.  Last time we saw Bob was at the Fox Glenn 10 years ago.

As we approached the Rock I was surprised how green it was following the rain a few nights earlier.  There has been a big fire recently and the colour contrast was outstanding, red sand dunes, green grass beside the road, and blackened trees.  We have watched two sunsets and one sunrise over the Rock, spent most of one day at the Olgas and all day today around base of Ayers Rock.  These two places are now referred to as Uluru and Kata Tjuta.  The 2 walks into the Olgas are very interesting and the early morning colours of the mounds and surrounding countryside is spectacular.  Water in both of the canyons is different.  Sunset over Ayers Rock shows off its remarkable colour changes from bluish pink to deep rich reds.  Hundreds watch it each night.  An early morning rise in the dark to await the sunrise from the opposite side was also worth the wake up with the red rock impressive as always.  We took a couple of walks to both of the permanent waterholes at the foot of the Rock and also a visit to Aboriginal Art Sites and caves was very interesting.  The climb up the Rock has been closed due to strong winds on the summit but we had a climb part way this afternoon.  It was hot and the track was slippery from so much foot traffic and we did not make all the way up.  The views were fantastic and worth the climb.  The tourist traffic has amazed us with at least a hundred vans and heaps of coaches and bus tours rolling through every day.  There were 7 coaches still at the sunrise viewing area when we left this morning.

underground Serbian Orthodox Church - Coober Pedy

remarkable bored roof line with 5 horizontal tunnel bores - all unsupported in  fresh rock

common malee flowers

Lookout #2 in Kata Tjuta

Goanna chasing brekky in the creek

These little guys were not happy with the goanna nearby

Kata Tjuta from the west - the deep canyon is the next walk...

....bright orange/red walls

at the end of the trail.

this surface water is not permanent.

Kata Tjuta from the south

Uluru from about 35kms away - soft bluey pinks

The sunset ritual.....going....

...going......

.....gone!!!

And at day break its back.

Kata Tjuta from Uluru sunrise viewing platform 45kms away at dawn

The sun rises

...and its cold!!.

Relaxing on one of many great carved seats.

Permanent waterhole at the foot of Uluru.

The brain.  Not sure the wattle has the right season??

On the way up..

Enjoying the sweeping views

...and theres always the down bit.

One of several gorges and the second permanent water site.

p.s. Excellent phone and bigpond reception at the campground and out to the Rock but the 210c/l for diesel is a bit of a dampener.