Kings Canyon to Alice Springs

DAY 13 – KINGS CANYON – ALICE SPRINGS

Ok. Can’t say that I am devastated to be leaving Kings Canyon.  Beautiful place but the weather was not fantastic and the lack of bread, milk, phone etc was starting to get to me.  Up early and off by 8:30am (which is not bad for everyone to be showered and dressed and fed and van packed up).  It is a pity that the Merrinee Loop through Hermannsburg is not sealed.  Or the Ernest Giles Track.  It would have saved us a couple of hundred kilometres.  Stopped at Erldunda (back on the Stuart Highway) for lunch because we only had enough bread for sandwiches for the kids and no fruit.  So we were all starving.  My hunting and gathering husband came back from the roadhouse with one moderate bag of chips.  $8.50!!!!!  A burger was $12.00!!!  So the Hansen family starved until Alice Springs!!  The kids did quite a bit of school work in the car on the way here.  We physically could not stop Ben – even when we told him he needed a break, he told us he couldn’t stop – he was addicted!!  God help us!

It was rather exciting driving into Alice Springs – being a fan of “A Town Like Alice”.  It is reasonably big for only 28,000 people but it obviously services a much larger community.  You cannot imagine my excitement at seeing a Coles, Woolworths AND Target!!  When Beth and I caught sight of a Sushi shop we almost fainted!!  David and Ben gallantly put up the van on the most enormous van site I have even seen.  We can fit our van, annexe, tent and car all on the site.  The Big 4 in Alice Springs might be a bit more expensive, but it is certainly worth it!! Beautiful camp kitchens, clean facilities AND a jumping pillow!  What more could a girl want? 

Spend the afternoon shopping for new runners for David and Bridget and some clothes for poor little Tess.  Having been very organised and packed the van early, I then had to take Tess’ clothes OUT for school camp.  Then promptly forgot to put them back!!  The poor love has been wearing the same pair of pants for two weeks!!  Being her birthday and all, I thought I could shout her a new pair of $5.00 pants from Kmart!

Got back to the park in time for the Parsons to shout our kids pancakes, and chocolate mousse and hot chocolates etc. – all from a little shop at the caravan park!!  Sooo nice!!

Kings Canyon Rim Walk

DAY 12 – KINGS CANYON

Said goodbye to the Parsons this morning and set off on our Kings Canyon walk, hailed by my husband as the most difficult walk of the Hansen Trek!!  The most surprising thing for David and I so far has been the fantastic way the kids have walked, and walked, AND WALKED, with no whinging!!!  Especially Tess – who has often been leading the pack!!  And some of the walks we have done so far have not been easy.  This walk is promoted as “difficult” and was about 7.2kms with diversions.  The first part of the walk was extraordinarily difficult with a very steep ascent up rocks to the top of the canyon – 100m high and very steep!!  Mummy, even after six months of the gym, was really puffing!!  The walk along the top of the canyon was just stunning.  You felt like you were on top of the world and in the middle of absolutely nowhere – which of course, you are!  The red rock cliffs are extraordinarily beautiful.

The next part of the walk is descending down into the “Garden of Eden” where there is a beautiful waterhole.  The bottom of the canyon is resplendent with ghost gums, cycads (relicts from the dinosaur age) and beautiful birds.  So cool and restful.  Then up to the top of the canyon again, a big walk up steps to the plateau with stunning outlooks down through the valley to Kings Creek.  Poor Bridgie was struggling by the end but I kept her entertained by doing the last kilometre or so, whilst getting her to count in fours to 140!!   A teacher of Grade 4’s in front of us was very impressed.  We had a lazy afternoon turning the tent into a picture theatre, complete with movie and popcorn!  Of course, Mummy fell asleep in the back row.  Must be all that washing I was doing at midnight the night before!!

The kids would not hear of us not going to see “The Roadies” for the third night in a row!!  I don’t think they could believe we were back again.  But the kids are just loving it.  Off to Alice tomorrow and I am very excited.  Just one of those towns I have always wanted to see.  We are there for five nights which will be really lovely especially with Tess’ birthday on Saturday.

Kings Canyon Creek Walk

DAY 11 – KINGS CANYON

It rained ALL night last night.  Our Not-So-Waterproof-Tent” was OK but not perfect!!  A little bit of drying of sleeping bags and tent and soaking shoes was necessary!!!  Pauline managed to find some bread had arrived at the shop but noticed it had been eaten by mice!  When she went to exchange it for another, she ended up asking for her money back as all the bags were the same!!

It was a bit difficult to know what to do today.  It is very overcast and raining from time to time.  A lot of people moved out today, presumably to move on to somewhere dryer! The Parsons are only here two nights so HAD to do the big Rim Walk today.  We decided to do the two shorter walks – The Kings Creek Walk and the Kathleen Springs walk – today and hope like hell that the weather fines up for the big walk tomorrow!  Both were absolutely beautiful and so secluded.  It was amazing seeing how the stockmen used to trap the cattle in the gorge near the spring water.  Little fence building needed with the natural fence of the gorge either side.

Off to “The Roadies” again tonight.  The kids are absolutely loving them!  Bridget Parsons and Beth are particularly enjoying watching their Dads dance to the Twist (NOT!).  Ben got to sing the national anthem tonight, like Tess the previous night.  We are hoping and praying for the rain to stop so the tent will dry!!

Yulara to Kings Canyon

DAY 10 – YULARA – KINGS CANYON

Took our time breaking camp this morning.  With a short drive of only 330 kms there was no hurry!!  We had a quick stop at Curtain Springs so the kids could see the aviaries housed there by the lady who owns the truck stop.  The kids loved the talking cockatoo and didn’t want to leave until it had said a naughty word!!  “Mongrel”, the emu, was not really in the mood for seven children wanting to chase and pat him, and let them know!  But actually it was a really nice stop with motel rooms as well as powered and (free) unpowered sites.  We had lunch at Kings Creek Station (absolutely freezing) before arriving at Kings Canyon Resort.  (Of course we are in the caravan park, not the “resort”!!)  I am sure it is lovely most of the year, but it is really cold and raining at the moment so we just had an early dinner and went up to the Pub for a night with “The Roadies”, a couple who sing and get the audience involved in a bit of fun during dinner.

The kids loved getting up on stage, playing instruments and singing.  But I think they loved it most of all when the PARENTS had to get up on stage.  David (in a cow hat) singing “Give Me a Home among the Gum Trees”, and Rob singing in a red afro wig!  Pauline (in a hippy, Nimbin wig) and I (in a blonde afro wig) had to sing “Do Wa Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Do”.  Not pretty but the kids loved it!  They all want to go back for more tomorrow night.

It was our first real experience of the outback when we realised, with seven children to feed, that there was no bread or milk here until Thursday!!  (Wish we had known THAT before leaving Yulara!)  We knew that things must have been bad when all the biscuits in the shop are kept in the fridge!! Beth was fine with the thought of starving to death, but when she heard that there was no internet and she could not email her friends – well, that really was too much!!  Not to mention the fact that we have to close the “gates” to the toilets to stop the dingoes going in there!  There’s a first for me!! 

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas)

DAY 9 – YULARA

Off to Kata Tjuta this morning for our Valley of the Winds walk.  It is still so cold in the morning and our walks don’t really warm ME up, but David says that says more about me than anything else.  My hubby is loving using his little BBQ plate to cook up bacon and eggs in the mornings.  And I must admit, those mornings when we don’t have to pack up are really special – you really feel like you are on holidays.  As David says, we are really “living the dream”.

The drive out to Kata Tjuta is beautiful.  I am constantly stunned by the beauty of the vistas, and the enormous difference in vegetation – the spinifex, the sheoaks, the scrubby bush, the rich, red, sandy soil.  I can really understand how attached you can become to the land out here.

The Kata Tjuta walk was really exhausting.  Only 7.4kms but much more difficult than yesterday and we are all exhausted.  Got some lovely photos.  Just stunning untouched landscape.  The kids have all been amazing.  Not a whinge out of them, and it really was a very difficult walk!!  Lots of rocks and climbing.  Even Bridgie, bringing up the rear, did a great job.  David, ever the teacher, kept her entertained by getting her to count in 2’s and 3’s to 200!!  Another night in front of the fire tonight with our jaffle irons!!  Nothing like a good Aussie fire, cooking toasted sangers and toasting marshmallows.  “Living the dream!!”

Uluru

DAY 8 – YULARA

What a fantastic day!!  We were planning on an early morning walk around the rock but just as the Parsons got into the car, a flat tyre was found!!  So unlucky to get a nail in tyre out here.  So the wonderful Alpha males crawled around in the red dirt while Pauline read (annoyingly!) from the instruction manual, explaining to them how to loosen wheel nuts!!  We were told to go and nurture the children and stick to women’s work.  Tyre changed, we were on the road!

The Parsons intended to climb the rock where we were just doing the base walk.  We started with the ranger guided Mala Walk which was really interesting – learning about how proficient the Aborigines are in understanding and using the trees and plants around them.  He was calling the trees a supermarket, hardware store and chemist all rolled into one.  He explained that Uluru was just a family name and did not really mean anything.  It was just the family name of the Anangu people who lived there.

While the Parsons went back for “the climb”, we proceeded around the base of the rock – 10.6kms, about 3.5 hours of solid walking. 

The rock itself is just stunning.  There are really no words to describe its beauty, serenity and size.  In some places the rock is just a sheer drop to the ground – 90 storeys high in some places!  The waterholes were just stunning – so peaceful and secluded.  There really aren’t words to describe how beautiful this place is.  It is easy to see how people call Uluru “the heart of Australia”.  As we walked around the rock, you felt like you were the only people in the world.

The walk around the base of the rock was so interesting on a number of levels.  We saw the site of the original camping ground and hotels which disappeared in the 1980s when the new Yulara Resort was built.  The north, south, east and west sides of the rock are so different.  The eastern face of the rock has a number of erosion marks which the kids loved making up stories about, similar to what you do with clouds!  On that side, the vegetation was gorgeous – just like a native garden with so many different flowers and shrubs.  The southern face of the rock has completely different vegetation because it has a lot more shade – taller, shadier gum trees, much less flowering shrubs, but much grassier and cooler.  The waterhole around that side was beautiful.  It was good to explain to the kids (and me!) that the Aborigines would not have swum in these waterholes because they would have been important sources of drinking water and so it was very important to keep them clean. 

We came home for some shopping and collecting of firewood before heading back to the rock for sunset.  A little disappointing as it was very overcast and so the changing of the rock colour was not particularly obvious.   But we more than made up for it with our cheeses and Moet Chandon champagne for the momentous occasion!

Home for a good Aussie BBQ and toasting marshmallows around the campfire!  The kids just had a ball, chasing each other around and then sitting around the big fire.  Such a great night.

Kulgera to Yulara

DAY 7 – KULGERA – YULARA

It was great not even having unhitched the car this morning, to just put things away in the van, and head straight out of the roadhouse.  We headed straight to Yulara.  David loved tricking the kids on the way.  (To the untrained eye, Mt Conner looks surprisingly like Uluru from a distance!!)

It is a lovely camping ground with great facilities.   We did some shopping at the supermarket (yes, they have a supermarket here now!!) and then went out to Uluru to the Interpretive Centre which was so interesting.  Bridgie took great delight in dragging me to a spot she had decided was a great view of the rock!!  The guy on the checkout at the souvenir shop was the grandson of Cassidy Uluru, a famous personality around Uluru.  I was talking to him about our trip and he said he would like to do that one day.  He had lived all his life with his mother’s tribe in Carnavon and moved to be with his father’s tribe eleven years ago.  He had never been out of the Northern Territory or W.A.  It occurred to me how similar we were in the sense that I had never BEEN to the Northern Territory or most of W.A. 

Saw a glimpse of the famous Ulura sunset from the viewing point at the caravan park before settling in for dinner and a drink with the Parsons!  Can’t wait for tomorrow.  Up early for a walk around the rock!!