Today has been a great day.
Awake with the alarm at 04:00, and ready outside the reception for my 04:45 pickup for the trip today out to Kings Canyon.
Picked up spot on time, the long journey to Kings Canyon seemed fairly quick. The journey started under the stars, and as we drove along the horizon lightened before turning various shades of orange as the sun crested the horizon. Just before 08:00, we had our first stop at Kings Creek Station for an included full cooked breakfast.
That done, it was just a further half hour up the road to Kings Canyon. The hike started with a series of steep steps; 500 of them apparently. After 200 we had a brief stop in case anyone wanted to turn back (one couple did to do the other walk here) before proceeding.
I had tried to take a photo during the stop, but the camera just beeped at me; with a fly net on and no reading glasses I didn't have the first idea what was wrong, so at the next stop (after about 400 steps) I checked it out and I'd somehow managed to set the photo timer; the beeping was the countdown to the photo being taken. I don't know how I'd set it and I didn't know how to remove it, but some random pressing of buttons seemed to have done the trick and it behaved itself for the rest of the day!
Anyway, the group continued up to the rim of the canyon. One of the things about being on a group trip is that I had to stay with the group. This is exactly the type of group that I try to avoid when I encounter them, so I felt that there was some irony with having to stay together. We made our way fairly leisurely along the rim, and the views were exceptional:-
We eventually came to an area called The Gardens of Eden, and descended some stairs into the cool of the shade, and the greenery of the gardens. We took the side trail right down into the gardens, and rested for twenty minutes of so near a water hole; it was fantastic to escape to the coolness from the heat of the rim.
It has really been one of those days when the pictures do the talking rather than the words.
At 11:20 we rose from our repose, and made our way back to the main path, and climbed a series of stairs to gain the canyon rim again. We made our way along the path until the steps lead us back down to the car park at 12:30. The views again had been fantastic, but at the finish I was exhausted, not by the length of the hike at 6km, but by the heat that just drains the energy; now I know why I'd started early and been finished hiking by about 10:00 on the other days here!
Back onto the bus, and we were taken to Kings Canyon Resort for lunch; they didn't really have anything I fancied, so I found a Magnum Honeycomb and a bottle of 'blue juice' to replace some of the sugars!
13:20, and we were back on the bus for the long drive back. The only stop on the way back was planned to be Curtin Springs Roadhouse, but we had a bonus stop at the Mount Connor Lookout. The camera was still working, so I managed to get the shots that I missed a few days ago (and means that I shan't have to stop here tomorrow when I'm passing). I also took a shot to show that they're not kidding when they call this the red centre!
We did stop at Curtin Springs, bit this was only a short stop, and we arrived back at Ayers Rock Resort just after 17:00; I was the first dropoff. Straight into dinner as it's been a long time since breakfast, than then back to the room to record the day, which is where you find me now.
Today has been a long day, both in terms of time taken and distance travelled (over 600 kilometres). I'm quite relieved that I was dissuaded from driving it myself.
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