The Kirks

We decided to take the more difficult route to Kings Canyon and set off. 2 km outside Alice, the tarmac road stops and it’s just one long unpaved road with potholes and corrugations through a harsh outback landscape.



For the record, the car we hired was a Toyota Rav 4 and it is without doubt, the worst four wheel drive car on the planet. It may be the worst car of any type. The steering wheel shakes, the car rattles, at more than 90km/h, it corners like it’s on casters. People in 20 year old Honda Civics were overtaking us on the inside and going round corners faster and more safely than we were in our “4×4″.

Anyway, after a fairly tense drive in the excuse for a four wheel drive vehicle, we ended up at the Kings Canyon Resort. Bascically there’s nothing at Kings Canyon except the Canyon and a “resort style” hotel. The hotel is…err…charming.

However, the canyon itself is exceptional. There’s two walks. One which walks up the canyon which is easy but fly ridden and a bit “ho hum”. We did that on the evening we arrived and were a bit disappointed. After a sumptious “international buffet style” dinner, we got up and attempted the canyon rim walk. There’s warning signs all over the place and they estimate that it will take four hours. Actually, it’s pretty easy and takes 2 hours. The scenery is oustanding.



Great blocks of sandstone laid down 400 million years ago cracked by being pushed up and then eroded into striated domes. The canyon isn’t much compared to the Grand Canyon but it still feels awfully high up on the edge. The canyon is also home to legacy plants which have survived from a time when Australia was much wetter. Interestingly, the red sandstone isn’t red! It’s white but the redness is caused by dust blowing on the rock and being chemically fixed there by microscopic lichen.

After the walk, we got straight into the awful car and drove out of King’s Canyon. Luckily the road turns into a tarmac road all the way to the Lassiter Highway which made driving a bit easier. Also, there was almost nobody on the road. Driving from Alice to Uluru was an excellent experience because it really gives you some idea of the scale of the country. Even once we got the the Lassiter Highway we still had over 100km to get to Uluru. We stopped for a “comfort break” at Curtain Springs which is one of the most isolated places I’ve ever seen. It’s at the center of a 1 million acre cattle station! There’s not much to see and not much to do except drink a coffee and eat a meat pie. There is a huge mountain south of it called Mt Connor which (to be honest) looks even more superb than Uluru.