2024 Uluru – Day 5

Today is our last full day in Central Australia so we decided to wrap things up with a trip to Kings Canyon. In my mind this location was made famous by the red dress worn by Guy Pearce in the 1994 movie ‘Priscilla Queen of the Desert’, but in reality it is an impressive geological formation that still supports an abundant variety of ancient plants. It is about 300 kilometres from Yulara, so the drive took about 3 hours. I had hoped to take a few drone shots along the way, but unfortunately my drone was misbehaving and refused to fly. Luckily this did not happen at the canyon, or it may have found itself at the bottom.

The road is straight and in good condition, so it’s not a difficult drive. The first and only landmark on the way is Mount Conner, which is about 300m high and of similar compostition to Uluru and Tata Tjuta.

Once we arrived at Kings Canyon we selected the South Wall walk which was supposed to be moderate difficulty and take about 2 hours for the return trip of 4.8 kilometres. In reality, it was more of a ‘rock scramble’ than a walk and it actually took 3.5 hours. It’s hard to believe this was all under the sea in prehistoric times, but you can definitely see the geological layers.

The views along the way and into the canyon were very interesting. There was an abundance of colour added by the various plants that find a way to grow in the rocks.

Once we reached the top of the canyon, we stopped for lunch. We’d taken some fruit and IGA sandwiches which went down a treat after the long trek up. The walls of Kings Canyon are over 100m high, with Kings Creek at the bottom. Part of the gorge is an Aboriginal sacred site and there is a permanent waterhole surrounded by plant life called The Garden of Eden. The waterhole is an important men’s sacred place for the traditional owners, with particular Dreaming stories associated with it, so visitors are not allowed to swim in it.

Once back on to the car park we started the 300 kms journey back to Yulara. One of the things we’d talked about was a lack of wildlife. Before today we’d only seen a couple of rabbits and a stick insect. Apparently, there are large numbers of feral animals that impact the habitat of the native animals. These are cats,dogs, rabbits, foxes, horses and camels. We saw a bunch of wild horses by the road and took a quick picture out of the car window.

So it’s time to wrap up the blog for this trip as we are just flying home tomorrow.

My favourite things were the Tali Wiru dinner on Monday night, so many great photo opportunities and the laser, light and drone show. I also enjoyed meeting lots of new and different people.

Deb’s favourites Tali Wiru Dinner, doing the walk around Uluru and enjoying the variety of plants and trees.

We both agreed that it is great to have ticked it off. We were also glad we had 5 days even though we though it might have been longer than we needed. Overall, a great success.

We look forward you joining us on our next holiday… stay tuned.