Little Red Dave: The Lonely Road

So, Little Red Dave refuses to come out from the bookshelf: he’s currently sulking between a copy of My Name is Red and my as-yet-unread copy of War and Peace. (Hey, have you seen the size of that thing? It’s on my to-do list...for the last 10 years). Apparently LRD’s still despondent over the whole Uluru thing and, coming on top of me going to Kakadu without him earlier this year, I think he’s waiting for some sort of grand apologetic gesture. I’ll try to write up my trip without rubbing salt in the wound too much.

I flew down to Alice Springs on Friday and checked into the Comfort Inn Outback, nestled in the McDonnell Ranges. 5am I was up and 6am I was on the road as the sun rose over the surprisingly-green landscape. I had booked a tour with an Adventure Tour company so it was just me, about 10 European tourists, who were all about 12, and two older English women so at least I had someone to talk to. [Yes, Dave, it would have been better if you had been there. I called this post 'The Lonely Road', didn't I? No, don't hide behind the Terry Pratchett novels. I'll never find you again.]

Photo of Alice Springs from Anzac Hill

And we drove....
and drove....
and stopped for a coffee...
and drove...

Kings Canyon is about four hours from Alice Springs but of course, by the time we got ourselves together and stopped for breaks, it took us 6. We grabbed a barbecue lunch and then drove to the canyon itself. The walls of Kings Canyon are over 300 metres high, with Kings Creek at the bottom.

Against my better judgement and possibly against sanity, I decided to do the 3-4 hour Rim walk with the rest of the group...at 1:30 in the afternoon in 37 degree heat. The walk itself is fantastic, if far too hot to be doing in the heat of the day, but the first part of the climb, Heart Attack Hill, is the most challenging. Once the steep ascent was under my belt, the rest was comparatively easy. Afterwards, we stumbled down the mountainside, piled back into the car and drove...and drove...and drove...arriving in Yulara about 9pm. We set up camp, we ate barbecued roadkill and then hit the sack. Literally: I have never been so tired in my life.

Photo: Heart Attack Hill. It's much higher than it looks.

Photo: Lilliput, so named because it looks likes a miniaturised version of the Gorge itself. One can imagine tiny people, just like ourselves, walking through it and looking up at the sheer walls.