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

Day 9 - Kings Canyon

our professional photographer

our holiday view

zoe impersonating nic

our first dingo encounter

start of the canyon walk

 

nic scored 50 points for seeing the first reptile on the trip

Pan-cakes with assorted fruit and jams. Doesn’t sound like camping ? Yep, that’s what we cooked from the wide range of services the delica has to offer. Followed by freshly brewed Colombian coffee. Also one of the many delica luxuries one indulges in as any delica enthusiast would tell you. Kings canyon was a bit of a wonder for me. When I think canyon, I think grand canyon or Niagara falls. Lots of greenery lots of wild life. Not so in this case. I mean don’t get me wrong. The canyon was spectacular but it was still mostly dry and red. The hike took us about 3 hours. We got some amazing shots. Along the path are these little plaques that tell you how the canyon formed and why it is in the shape that it is. Something about sand dunes that compacted and were inundated by silica rich water which glued the layers of wind swept soil over the plane of central Australia. We headed back to the resort (a common name in this area for a $10 camp site with no power) and decided to have the afternoon off with a bit of Frisbee and cold beer. The sky was blue, the sun was hot and I was thinking of all my friends sitting in front of a keyboard, monitor and emails. For dinner, I cracked open a bag of beat beads in the miniweber and slow marinated prime cuts of fresh steak in a beer and mustard bowlabong (beer and mustard in a small bowl). They were then seared on the BBQ and served with roasted corn and potato. To Finish off, Zoe made us fire melted marsh mellows on a sandwich of chocolate wheetons. You gotta try it. Is very betta (south African local language for its excellent). Thank you for following. Hope you enjoy the photos.


A special thanks to all those people who have just joined the blog. The delica will be waiting for all of you when your keen to traverse the worlds driest country. Nic



Oh I forgot to mention. We saw our first dingo up close and personal. He was about 3 meters away and looking for food. Adios