Day 192- Finke River to Watarrka (Kings Canyon)

We had a few miles to cover today. I think we did about 350km in four and a half hours. We were initially going to stay at Kings Creek Station which is 40km from the actual canyon. We had heard that it had a nice atmosphere and was cheaper than the resort and that is also did a mean camel burger! But as we were approaching the turn Tim commented that it was still a distance to the actual canyon and if I intended to do a sunrise walk in the morning it would add a lot of km and time to the morning… so a last minute decision had us continuing past and heading to Kings Canyon Resort. Glad we did cos it turns out the two places are both the exact same price and the resort, while not all that resort-like, has lots of grass and nice amenities and a good playground for the kids.

Made camp, went for a play in the playground, checked out the local store and servo (diesel $1.62 @ L which is actually 3c less than we paid at Erldunda) before heading off to the canyon for a look.

The rock is a vibrant red colour and is quite impressive to see, but the riverbed walk was not as great as Tim had hoped. I did not mind so much as I know I will get a different view of it in the morning when I do the Rim Walk but from below you don’t get to see all that much. You can see the amazing straight cuts of the rock but you don’t walk through the canyon so much. Well, I guess you do cos you follow the river, but you don’t feel like you are surrounded by rock. (You can see in between the two rocks the little bridge that is part of the Rim Walk).
We had left Mum and Dad on Saturday in Alice Springs and we knew we would catch up tomorrow at Uluru but we ran in to them today on the walk. Jordy spotted their car in the car park initially and then half way along the path he tracked them down. They had to come back and do the walk again as Darcy would not come back to be carried by me when Grandpa (his favourite) was around to carry him instead.
This is the walk straight up the hill that starts the Canyon Rim walk for me for in the morning...
An easy dinner and an early night. Bit cold here!! So all the blankets are out. And we were told not to leave shoes outside cos the dingos take them. The bloke across the street must have thought the people were joking when they told him not to leave his shoes outside and he had a pair of Nikes taken- apparently he was not happy!