This post and the next two posts are coming to you days late due to next to no telephone or internet service at Kings Canyon!

Something we forgot to add yesterday is that we learnt at the Bush Yarns session why climbing Uluru is no longer permitted. It was explained to us that there were two main reasons behind the decision:
1) The local indigenous people felt very responsible for the injuries and deaths occurring.
2) The climbers were leaving a lot of rubbish at the top of Uluru and also as there are no toilets at the top, a lot of people were doing their “business” up there. Consequently, all the rubbish and biological waste was being washed down into the waterholes and contaminating the area. So much so that emus and kangaroos hadn’t been seen in the area for nearly 10 years. Thankfully, only a couple of months ago, the local indigenous people found an emu egg!

We headed off from Uluru around 10am on Friday after “G” grabbed his morning coffee. The drive to Kings Canyon is about 3-3.5hrs however the road off the Lasseter Highway up to Kings Canyon is a little narrower with high grass on either side. It is also the road that we have come the closest to having an accident on. Only a couple of nights earlier on our Field of Lights trip we had a laugh when the bus driver said there was lots of wildlife on the roads and the worst was the rental car drivers. He was soooooo right! We came up behind a Britz motorhome which was going about 80kmh but was hugging the line in the middle of the road a lot. We decided to overtake but nearly got sideswiped by him as he again came across to the wrong side of the road and the drop off the bitumen on the other side was pretty bad. Thankfully “A” managed to keep the wheels on the bitumen and not lose the side mirror!

We stopped at Kathleen Springs which is not too far away from Kings Canyon. The walk into Kathleen Springs is pretty easy and only about 2.6km however the sun was HOT HOT HOT. We were very grateful to reach the spring at the end of the walk where it was shaded and a lot cooler. We enjoyed the scenery and some lunch before heading off for the final few kms to Kings Canyon.

We checked in to our room which is really nice and has a massive spa which everyone is looking forward to having a turn in. The view from our room is fabulous, onto a rocky outcrop with Kings Canyon in the distant background. We settled in, caught up with Nan and Gramps, checked out the rest of the resort (pool, bars etc) and treated ourselves to an icecream and nap.

Around 5:30pm we headed up to the sunset deck to have some happy hour and listen to the live music which was awesome. There was even a “friendly” dingo that came up to check everyone out and hope for some food.

Just after sunset we headed down to the pub for dinner. Unfortunately they had run out of a few options so we had to decided again and then it took about 45mins to arrive, needless to say there were two little hungry people by that stage!

After dinner we headed back to our rooms ready for our hike around the Kings Canyon rim tomorrow.