Emus at Breakfast and Kings Canyon

Curtin Springs to Kings Canyon
14Oct08

While Justin took a shower I made the mistake of feeding a wild emu. When my emu friend became more interested in the open truck doors I quickly realized that it's hard to shoo away a 4 foot tall, sharp-beaked bird. Before I could find a way to stop him he took a chunk out of the rubber door gasket! Must not have tasted too good though, because he wandered off after that :)



Today we drove north to King's Canyon through more beautiful red dirt country, and camped at the caravan park inside the national park. Another resort inside a national park that doesn't have regular campgrounds. There were tons of playful galahs and several wild dingos. The dingos must be a real problem because they even had gates on the bathrooms to keep them out.

By the time we got checked in it was too hot to do a hike so we just relaxed. By relaxed I mean I poured over the maps to plan our itinerary while Justin reattached several bits and bobs that had rattled themselves loose on the car ;) Plus that night we indulged in an hour of very poor satellite internet access that was more frustrating than useful. I can't believe we ever complained about web access in New Zealand!



Kings Canyon
15Oct08

Today we did a very nice loop hike in King's Canyon.



You start the hike by climbing to the top of the canyon and then it's easy walking though amazing "beehive" sandstone formations with periodic views down into the canyon. About halfway you descend into a gorge with a year-round waterhole that is home to many birds, animals and plants. Dubbed "the Garden of Eden" it's a spectacular spot.



It used to be a popular swimming hole but the park asks you not to swim anymore since sunscreens and lotions can pollute the water. Speaking of swimming, as we left the water hole we passed an odd middle-aged couple - the man was nondescript, but the woman was wearing a strapless bikini... did you get that? She was hiking in a bikini AND wearing a mozzie net hat. It was the strangest thing I've seen in awhile!



Throughout Kings Canyon we passed many handsome examples of the "prehistoric" MacDonnell Cycad, a plant that doesn't grow anywhere else, but I'll leave it to the resident flora expert to elaborate :)



We also had the great luck to see a bower bird guarding his bower! These are very cool birds that build a "showroom" nest to attract the females, decorated with bits of trash and so forth that they have collected (like a magpie.) This particular bower bird needed to work on his collection and I would have donated something if I'd had anything appropriate.

After the hike we embarked on the dreaded "Mereenie Loop Road." This is a short cut in distance, but after driving it we aren't sure it's worth it!



We'd been warned by Lotti and Heike that it was a bad road - they didn't take it - but the woman at the campground reception said it had just been graded so we figured it'd be ok. So we bought the permit and headed off (you have to have a permit to go through the tribal land.) Needless to say it was heavily corrugated (washboarded) and full of bulldust holes and we had to lower the tire pressure considerably. The country was beautiful though and we saw wild camels and horses, which redeemed it slightly.



Eventually we reached the turnoff for the Palm Valley NP campground, another 16km on bad road, but we were rewarded with a fantastic campground that had flush toilets and solar-heated hot showers! Plus a merciful lack of flies and mosquitos - what more can you ask for? We relaxed and watched the full moon come up while bats darted in the twilight. Something, possibly a small bat (or a big roach) actually flew into the truck for a moment, but quickly found it's way out fortunately. While we washed up the dishes we had a nice conversation with another camper who told us all about going on safari in Africa. It sounds fantastic -maybe we'll have to amend our itinerary (if we ever get out of Australia!)

Kings Canyon photoset
Mereenie Loop photoset