Day 68/9: 26th and 27th August. The din just goes - Kings Canyon

Tonights lodgings are like a resort, but with a massive caravan park. Our van is backed up against a view of the George Gill mountain range, and we have an ensuite. Ohhhh, our own shower and toilet! I mentioned earlier that this is a luxury, but OMG, it is so good to be parked right next to your facilities and also have your stuff already in it. Showered when we got here, two showers the next day and one just before we left. So good. Internet is poor again, but really I have to understand that we are literally in the dead centre of Australia. However, it did only take them 4 years, 100 years ago to put the telegraph straight up the middle, how hard can it be to bounce a signal or two from a satellite?

We are warned on arrival about the Dingo’s. You get a fact sheet about what to do if you encounter them, and the first line is that they are more scared of you than you are of them. This doesn’t sit well for me, as they say the same thing about spiders, but they still set up nests in my home. We are warned to leave nothing outside as it will go. While we are sitting at our table after dinner on the first night, we see two come into the park and have a wander around. This was pretty exciting. The next morning, during breakfast we spy one that has some rubbish under a tree not far from our van. I’m able to get a lot closer behind another campers car and take some photo’s. The dingo was a little bothered by us, but essentially moved around doing his thing, testing what it found. Finally, it found a thong and bolted off with it’s prize. Definitely leaving the slides in the van again tonight.

The highlight is obviously Kings Canyon. We do the rim walk – 4 hours of hiking with an extreme start and quite a steep finish, and very rocky terrain in the middle. Only around 7k’s, my watch tells me that we climbed 54 flights. The canyon was amazing in it’s terrain and cut aways, and a little garden of Eden in the middle that we lunched by. A really good walk, with the immenseness of the Canyon, the sheer cliffs, and the strenuous up and down over generally natural terrain. I give it 10,000 steps out of 10,000.

Did I mention the ensuite?