On our way to Alice Springs, a little south of Tennant Creek, we find a wonderful side excursion just off the highway. Karlu Karlu, or if you like a more descriptive name, the Devil’s Marbles, are a series of huge granite boulders. Some are bigger than a good size caravan, and which, depending on your mythology, the Rainbow Serpent has laid as eggs, or the Devil has strewn across the valley; rather dull in the daylight, at sunset they glow like red hot coals.
We figure we must be becoming a little bit Australian when we think nothing of driving from Alice Springs late one afternoon to see the beautiful Rainbow Valley at sunset – it’s a 200km round trip, 45km on red dirt road. It is totally worth it for another coloured sandstone rock formation weathered by wind and water, rising out of the desert and glowing in the late sun. There’s almost no-one here, just us and the flies.
We definitely should have been in the Red Centre of Australia a month ago, when temperatures were only in the early 30s. As it is, we strike the start of the hotter season and every day is 38 or 39C, which means – you guessed – early starts.
From Alice we head to Kings Canyon, which rises 270 metres above sea level. Aside from sitting out at the campsite with a drink in your hand at sunset, the only way to appreciate the Canyon is to do the 6.5km rim walk, and of course that means starting before the heat.
our welcome to the walk is a steep 500 odd step haul to the top, and fortunately there’s an AED at the top – equally as fortunately I don’t need it. Once the potential need for CPR passes, we continue. The walk is not steep after the start, but you still need to watch where you put your feet. The Canyon Rim Walk is just that, tracing the rim of the canyon on a well signed path. It follows the natural contour of the land, and where they’ve had to put steps, it still looks like natural rock. There are a couple of bridges and at one point a wide crevice demands a wooden staircase descent into the Garden of Eden. No snakes please. It is a surprisingly lush – for the desert – area with cycad like palms and greenery around a waterhole at the bottom.
It’s stunning. I feel like I’m saying that a lot lately, but once you get into the Red Centre, the landscape is just awesome – in the sense it actually does inspire awe, not in the sense you’ve just ordered a cup of coffee.
After the canyon you start thinking, well Uluru can’t top this. But whether it’s because the Rock is so huge, or because it rears out of the flat desert, or just because it’s so iconic, it floors you when you first see it. But then, as you get closer it gets even more interesting. The rock is stunning in its complexity. Although it looks like a loaf of bread from a distance, it is an irregular triangle and the surface is a marvel of nature’s design. The north side is notable for the considerable number of pockmarks, some large, some small, pitting the surface skin: at times it’s like honeycomb; in other places Swiss cheese. All around, though more evident on the east and south, are great crevices down which water thunders in the wet season. This must be a marvellous sight.
We go first to the Cultural Centre and learn the history of the Anangu people and the dreamtime stories about the rock. The next day we get up early, of course, to do the 10.6km base walk around the perimeter of Uluru. At 7.00am people had been lining up for over an hour to climb Uluru. The climb entry gate closes about 11.00am to protect people from themselves, as by then it’s 36 degrees. As I’ve said before, people die of stupidity.
In any event the angle of the climb appears to be about 40 degrees incline for most of it, and increases towards the top. No wonder people have heart attacks. By the time we complete our circumnavigation we see people descending; this requires an undignified sliding on their asses, as it is too difficult to descend normally. Last week someone fell 20 metres on the way down, and the Flying Doctor Service airlifts three injured people a week, on average, to hospital. Uluru closes to climbers permanently on 26th October this year, in accordance with the wishes of the local Anangu – they’ve only been asking for 34 years since the land was returned to them.
I’m saving you further descriptions of fiery sunsets as for the three evenings we were there the cloud covered the sinking sun and the postcard like colours didn’t eventuate. That includes the late afternoon flight over Uluru and Kata Tjuta (aka the Olgas, and equally stunning formation nearby). And our 5.30am start one day to catch sunrise. At least we were up early to walk Kata Tjuta.
This is all so remote, but Is there anywhere more remote than King’s Canyon? The answer is no, not when you have put half a tank of petrol in your diesel Landcruiser.
With half a tank of gas we decide to fill up at the caravan park before we head to Uluru, 300 kms away. I go in to get coffee. Scott comes in a few minutes later and says “I’ve stuffed up”. Understatement. Alice Springs, the only town around, is 457kms away. Everyone is very nice about it, even though we’re blocking the bowsers so no one can fuel up. I guess for the maintenance staff who come to the rescue, tow the car and van away, then spend the next six and a half hours draining the tanks, it’s another dumb tourist story to be told over drinks. The upside is we now know there are two fuel tanks, the exact capacity, and how much it costs to fill them with the most expensive diesel in Australia.
