Northern Territory Day 4

The morning of the fourth day, I checked out of Yulara, and headed towards Kings Canyon. I stopped briefly on the roadside, to look at Mount Connor in the distance. Mount Connor is located on private land, so the only way to look at it up close is with the camel tours run by the owners. I decided to skip the camel tour and make do with a distant view.

I drove on to Kings Canyon Resort (about 400 km from Yulara by sealed road, and about 7 km past Watarrka National Park, which contains Kings canyon), and checked in. I then grabbed some lunch from the local milk bar, and headed back to Kings canyon.

I decided to do the Canyon Rim walk that afternoon, and started out from the carpark.

This is a view of the canyon from the trail from the carpark.

This is the initial steps up to the canyon rim. If you look closely, you can see the line of people making their way up.

Because I have an injured knee, I used a walking stick to take some of my weight, and made my way up the steps very slowly and carefully. I followed this principal for the whole walk, and only needed to stop once to put an ice pack on my knee. I highly recommend the use of a walking stick as a cheap hiking pole, it made a real difference to how secure I was when scrambling across uneven footing.

The top of the canyon rim is covered with mounds of stones, almost like giant beehives. These mounds used to be sand dunes, millions of years ago, but have been compressed over time into rock.

Some of the rocks show wavy lines, from being at the base of a water way.

One section of the canyon rim contains a "miniature" version of the landscape, called Liliput.

At the back of the canyon, the path descends down stairs, into an oasis called the Garden of Eden. Permanent rock pools here are filled with water that sinks through the sandstone, then hits a layer of waterproof shale.

The path then continues back up to the other side of the canyon rim. There are some amazing views from here of the canyon.
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Finally, the path heads back down to the carpark. The descent is not as steep as the ascent.


All up the walk took me about 4 hours. The guide books list the walk as taking between 3 and 4 hours, so they are pretty spot on. The walk is often a scramble over rough ground, and it is sometimes hard to spot the next route marker, even in broad daylight. I wouldn't want to be on the walk after dark.

It was an exhausting walk, but also beautiful and amazing. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Update on DIY projects

I haven't posted for a while, and several projects have continued. I have been painting the side of the house. Two of the window frames had sections with putty that had not been over painted by the previous owners, and hence there was rust starting on the frames. I cleaned out the old putty (not too hard in this case,as the putty was still fairly soft), sanded back the frames, painted with metal primer, and then with two coats of solargard. Finally, I applied fresh putty. This was about a week and a half ago. The instructions on the putty say to wait two weeks for the putty to skin before over painting, so I can finish painting the window frames next weekend.

I had a couple of cubic meters of pine bark mulch delivered, and I have mulched the new garden bed. I also weeded the back garden bed (along the back fence line) and dug up the sleepers edging it. I have moved the sleepers out by about half a meter, to widen the garden bed. Previously, the edge was hard up against the trees and shrubs, which made mowing difficult, and didn't look too good. I am gradually mulching the bed, as time and energy levels permit :)

While cleaning up the back garden bed, I decided to severely cut back a plant that was looking pretty ratty. When I got to the roots, a cluster of rhizomes, I discovered that the plant is a form of ginger ( the rhizomes smell gingery when I cut into them). I left some of the fresh shoots alone, and gave the plant a good watering with seasol, so now I will wait to see if it comes back strongly or not.

The plants I initially planted into the new garden bed have all survived, except for one of the platylobium seedlings. It was pulled out either by a cat or a bird. I went back to the native nursery to get more tube stock, and planted some more shrubs and ground covers. I am not sure what the new plants are, as the labels at the nursery were all worn off, so I went by section (ground cover, small shrub). If they survive and start flowering then I will be able to tell what they are then :).

Over the last few days, I have been finishing the tiling preparation in the bathroom. I finally spent the time with a cold chisel and hammer, to remove the last of the old tiling cement. I then washed down the wall with sugar soap, rinsed thoroughly, and let the wall dry. This morning I put a line of silicone sealant down where the wall meets the top of the bath. Once this has cured, I will have a go at putting fresh tile cement on, and re-tiling the first section.

Now, back to cleaning the house ... :)