The morning we left Alice springs we had booked the caravan in for a wheel alignment check before heading off to Kings Canyon.  We have one tyre on the caravan that is scrubbing out a bit and thought that we would get it looked at before leaving.  When we arrived to have it looked at the mechanic took one look and said that his equipment wouldn’t be able to attach to our rims.  We then decided to just keep going and head towards Kings Canyon.  This meant that we also got on the road a couple of hours earlier than planned so it wasn’t all bad news.  Just hope the tyre lasts until we get home.

There is still a lot of traffic on the roads around this area, even though the weather is still very hot.  The drive to Kings Canyon from Alice Springs was a 330 km trip for us in one day.  This is quite a big travel day for us as generally we only do around 200 km in a travel day. 

We stopped for morning tea at the Red Centre Way turnoff and timed it just nicely for a tour bus  to stop at the same time.   It wasn’t to bad though and there was plenty of room.  We stayed at the Kings Canyon Resort Caravan Park.  It wasn’t to bad but we did think it was a bit over priced at $50 p/n.  They did upgrade us to an ensuite site which was nice and these sites did have a nice view out the back of them overlooking the ranges which form part of the Urrampinyi Hills.  They also warn you about the dingoes that walk through the park as well.  We did see them often and they aren’t shy at all.  If there was no one around at their respective campsites the dingoes would push and try to open containers laying around.  They were also very reluctant to leave even when being shooed away.

There are a couple of walks that you can do while at Kings Canyon.  The Kings Canyon Rim walk is a 6km walk and takes you around the rim and past some quite spectacular rock formations.  We really enjoyed this walk.  The first part was the most difficult where you have to climb to the top of the rim.  The rest of the walk from there was relatively easy with only a few small steep sections after that.  There is also the Kings Creek Walk that was a short 1km walk up Kings Creek to a lookout.  It is a pity that everything is so dry at the moment, the country really does look like it is only just surviving at the moment.  They did close the rim walk down later in the morning due to the weather being to hot.  Not sure what the shut off temperature is but it would have been closed by around midday we thought.

Kathleen Springs Walk was a very easy short walk that took us to the only waterhole we saw with some water actually in it.  It is amazing what a little bit of water can do in a hot dry area for the wildlife and plants.  It was nice to see a bit of greenery and hear birdlife in the trees.   Although only a short walk it took you past some interesting country.  Nice way to fill in an hour.

After a nice three nights at Kings Creek it was off to Uluru and Kata Tjuta (the Olga’s).  We had phoned ahead and booked to stay at Yulara Caravan Van Park as it was reportedly still very busy with lots still going there to climb Uluru before its impending closure.  This was another 300 km drive for us in one hit.  With intestinal fortitude we made it through.  We stopped at the Mt Conner Lookout rest area for morning tea. This offered you great views of Mt Conner in the distance as well as the general country side.

We arrived at Yulara and booked into the caravan park.  The area they put us in was OK but a little bit squashy.  There was literally only enough room to park your van and roll out your awning.  We actually couldn’t roll our awning out all the way without going into our neighbours area.  It was only for three nights so all was good.  But at $67 a night we thought it could have been a little bit roomier.  Its not as though they are short on land out here.

The next day it was up quite early and off to Uluru.  We had planned to do the walk around the rock and were undecided on whether to do the actual climb.  The walk around Uluru is 10.6km on a very easy track.  From this walk there are other small walks that get you closer to the rock itself and into some gorges close to the base.  You also get to see some of the impressive geological features of the rock as well while doing the walk.  When we arrived in the morning the actual climb for the rock was closed due to high winds at the top. The walk took us about 2.5 hrs and we rewarded ourselves with an ice cream at the end of it. 

When we got back the rock was open to climbers.  It was also quite warm by this time so we decided that we wouldn’t bother climbing and sat for about 20 minutes watching people start the climb.  It was interesting to see how unprepared some people are for this climb.  Some were attempting it without carrying any water or wearing a hat.  Others also did not get very far up before they realised that they had a fear of heights and then had to try and come down again.  After watching you could understand why they wanted to stop people from climbing Uluru.

We were planning on doing the sunset viewing of Uluru but the late afternoons have been a bit cloudy and not the best for viewing.  Hopefully we might get one night before we go.  Kata Tjuta or “The Olga’s”,  were our next walking trek.  These are about a 50km drive from Yulara but along a nice sealed road.  This is also the road we will be taking when we leave to go back to WA.

We really enjoyed the walk at Kata Tjuta.  There are a couple of options that you can do for the walk by either going to one or two lookouts or you can keep on walking and do the circuit.  Which is what we did.   This is about a 7.4 km circuit and takes you around the back of one of the largest dome shaped formations.  Of the two lookouts, Karingana is the pick of them.  This takes you to the Valley of The Winds which at times can be very strong coming between the domes.  On our walk the wind was very gentle, just enough to keep you a bit cooler.  We did prefer our walk around Kata Tjuta more that the walk around Uluru.  There were a lot more interesting things to look at on this walk plus it was also a little bit more difficult as well. 

We finished off our visit to Kata Tjuta with a walk to Walpa Gorge. We were a bit dis appointed with this walk. I think we may have been a bit to spoilt with all the other gorges we have seen on our travels. Also being so dry at the moment did not make the gorge look as good as it probably does usually.

Well tomorrow we leave Uluru and start our next dirt section back to WA.  Hopefully all goes well for us and we don’t have any issues with either the van or car during the trip back.  As the weather is quite warm also we wouldn’t like to be stuck out here any longer than we need to be.