Day 10 - Kings Canyon to Orminston Gorge

“Do you have a 4WD?”

Yes

“Are you driving a rental”

No

“Are you towing a trailer”

No

“Are you towing a caravan”

No

And then, we were good to go…

Today we smashed the Meerinie Loop, a small and bumpy road which joins up Kings Canyon to Alice, instead of driving the long way round (ie back to Yalara, Erlduna and then up the Stuart Hwy). It was not unlike the trip out to Lake Ayre, although thankfully not quite as treacherous. The corrugations in the road, at parts were horrible but overall I was only clinging to my seat for about one fifth of the trip rather than the whole of it… especially after we introduced (well I did), the “lets stay on 60km/h” rule.

The road aside, the view the whole way was absolutely spectacular as we passed through many different gorges. We saw wild brumbies, successfully navigated through our first river crossing and had a good laugh at all of the signs which read “Keep to the left – in Australia”. Honestly, if people can make it out to these roads in the middle of the outback surely they should know what side they have been driving on the whole way here…!

We stopped at Orminston Gorge just in time to watch the sun go down over the surrounding peaks… It was another beautiful sunset.

Hitting the Meerinie

Red red dirt baby...

To give you an idea of the corrugations

"careful driving techniques are advised"
ie. SLOW DOWN Nic!

Interesting sculpture on the side of the road, in the middle of a feild, in the middle of NOWHERE.
random!

wild horses

A quick stop for some tea and lunch - check the view in the background

Sunset at Orminston

A welcome visit from some butterflies at ourlunch stop

Mountains mountains mountains

Karaoke competitions in the car

At our first river crossing

Glen Helen Gorge

A creek on the road down to Orminston

The view from the lookout at Orminston

A friendly little lizard

Down at the billabong

The view from our camp