Kings Canyon Rim Walk, Watarrka National Park - December 2015

Looking back down the canyon from near Cotterills Lookout.

The Kings Canyon Rim Walk is another of the Northern Territories great day walks, Central Australia is certainly blessed with more than its fair share of stunning tracks. The only issue with a lot of these great walks is that they are now almost over regulated to protect the multitude of punters that turn up to have a go at them, and while I'm not necessarily against the substantial hardware and track marking on some of these walks which is in place to make them safer and easier to complete, I'm not a big fan of track closures due to predicted temperatures. The problem, as I see it, is that it forces everyone onto the tracks over a small window of time, and while you may finish the walk with the ambient temperature a couple degrees cooler, when your talking high 30's low 40's I'm not sure it makes a huge difference, either way its bloody hot and if you can't stand the heat you shouldn't be out there anyway. The real negative for me though is that I generally visit these places for the scenery and the calming atmosphere, neither of which is real good when your sharing the experience with 60 of your newest friends. No doubt the people at parks are worried about public liability and think this is the best course of action, and it may well be, but it still shits me.

The initial climb up onto the North Rim.

Anyway I was off to an early start again today, with the forecast of a temperature in the low 40's I had to get past the start of the first climb by 9:00am. I left it as late as possible though, hoping that the majority of people on the bus tours would be well ahead of me, and my tactics actually worked reasonably well, sneaking through the gate with a couple of minutes to spare there weren't to many other walkers around. After passing through the gate I started the hardest climb of the walk up to the top of the North Rim, ten minutes later and it was all over and I was on top and walking through a stunning plateau covered in weathered sandstone domes, yeah if you're not a fan of red rock I'd probably stop reading this post about now I reckon.

Weaving through the sandstone domes on the North Rim.

With the main climb over the trail now meanders around the labyrinth of domes, the odd trail marker along with the wear marks on the sandstone keeping me heading in the right direction. If you're wondering why I'm not talking about vegetation its because with exception of the very occasional Ghost Gum or cycad there isn't a lot on top of the plateau. While there isn't an overabundance of vegetation the scenery is stunning, the track makes its way to the lip of the canyon in a couple of places and the vertical walls are vertigo inducing. Being early in the morning a lot of the South Rim walls were still in the shade which meant my photos aren't the best but the shear size of these walls have to be seen to be believed.

There are a few Ghost Gums clinging to the rock.

The cliffs of the South Rim.

My first visit here was over 30 years ago and on that visit I had completed the rim walk, apart from the cliffs of the canyon my main memory was crossing a bridge over a chasm on a side trip to a lookout, the bridge consisting of a couple of old cypress trees tied together with some slabs of sandstone on top, it certainly got your attention. Now days there is a nice safe steel bridge complete with safety rails over the chasm, but if you look down into the chasm to your left the remains of the old log bridge are still there wedged in the chasm halfway down. Once I finished my reminiscing I continued on to Cotterills Lookout, Jim Cotterill was the driving force in opening a lot of this country up for tourism. Cotterills Lookout's main attraction is its view down into the Garden of Eden, and while I've been here numerous times over the years I've never seen it with so much water in it, the little gorge wall to wall with beautiful water.

Its a bit hard to see but the debris wedged half way down the chasm is the old bridge.

My first look into the waterhole at the end of the Garden of Eden, lots of water on this trip!

The South Rim cliffs from Cotterrils Lookout.

Returning to the main route I now made my way down into the Garden of Eden via some well engineered staircases and bridges, in days gone by the Garden of Eden was one of the most stunning swimming spots in the Northern Territory but due to cultural reasons swimming has been stopped now. I must admit having some conflicting views on this, on the one hand I totally agree with respecting the traditional owners wishes, but I am a bit dubious with the reasoning behind the ban, which is that its for the animals that use the waterhole. It appears that a lot of visitors don't even make the short side trip down to the waterhole now, they drop in one side of the gorge and then climb straight up the stairs and out the other, they don't know what they're missing though, even if you can't take a refreshing dip the jurassic vegatation is still worth the short side trip, the gorge being filled with ancient cycads along with plenty of ferns, Cypress Pines and Red Gums. 

There's a fair bit of hardware on this walk, this is descending into the Garden of Eden.

After having a bit of a break in the cool shade of the Garden of Eden it was time to head back up into the furnace, the climb up the stairs had me well and truly warmed up. I was now on the South Rim and even though I'd been dawdling a fair bit I was starting to catch up with a few punters. Like the North Rim the trail along here twists and turns a fair bit staying fairly close to the edges of the cliffs. After  a little while the trail arrives at the edge of the most impressive lookout on the walk I think, from the unfenced top of the under cut cliffs the views across to the North Rim cliffs and back up to the Garden of Eden are particularly good, today I was rewarded for the first time on all my visits with a view of the waterfall at the head of the Garden of Eden flowing down into Kings Creek, a very special sight.

The view of the North Wall with the waterfall that drains the Garden of Eden on the left of the photo.

The photos a bit average but its pretty rare to see this waterfall flowing.

The Mereenie Sandstone that makes up the North Rim cliffs, you may have seen this in Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

While the Kings Canyon Rim Walk is very regulated I knew a place that wasn't, leaving the last lookout I crossed another bridge over another chasm, this bridge had a lock on it that the rangers lock when the temperatures get to high to stop the punters coming in this way, I was a little amused to notice that while the chasm that the bridge was spanning was deep it was only very narrow so that it'd be quite an easy jump, hmm, I'll keep that in the back of my mind. Continuing on I reached the intersection with the Giles Track that I'd come in on yesterday evening, this was my ace. Turning up the Giles Track I immediately left the crowds behind and was on my own for the first time today, I was now heading back to the waterhole that I had passed late yesterday. After winding around the sandstone domes for a kilometre or so I spied my waterhole down in a valley, after a bit of off piste navigation I was sidling down the almost dry waterfall to the edge of the waterhole.

There was a little water lying about, left over from the recent rain.

This is the bridge that the rangers lock to stop people accessing the walk from the South Side in the heat.

The only problem is the chasm is only a short jump! Well if you're 6'3".

The Ghost Gums grow in small crevices in the rock that allow the roots to tap down and find some moisture.

The next couple of hours were spent either floating in the waterhole or sitting under a rock overhang beside the waterfall reading and drinking. The waterhole was in a shallow valley and lined on two sides by the usual red rocky bluffs, the far end had a couple of big Red Gums that provided a little shade as I lay in the water, and the stepped waterfall at my end provided a very civilised way of easing myself into the deep water. I can't think of a lot I enjoy more in life than sitting by a waterhole on a hot day reading, relaxing and watching the birds and insects flittering in and out of the water, life's hard...

The shallow valley above my waterhole.

There was a little overhang on the left that gave me a nice shady spot to sit.

Eventually I figured that I'd better put on some clothes and finish off the walk, as soon as I left the cool shade of my rocky overhang the ambient temperature increased around 15 C and it didn't take long for my cool waterhole to become a distant memory. I was now walking the exact route that I'd walked last night when I trudged in as I was finishing the Giles Track, and with the extreme early afternoon sun blasting the landscape I didn't linger this afternoon taking to many photos. With the route fresh in my mind it seemed like no time and I was back on the Rim Walk and making my final descent down the long series of natural dry stone streps back to the car park. Heading back to the resort I enjoyed a long cool drink before spending the rest of the afternoon with Sam at the pool, but secretly I was wishing that we were back at my secluded waterhole.

Back on the Rim Walk now, heading back to the ute.

The last long rocky staircase down to the carpark.

The Dirt.

This is a beautiful walk, yeah its a little over regulated for me but it's still great. I walked 10.7 kilometres on this stroll and climbed 396 metres. I'd rate this as a  medium walk, although the further you venture out onto the Giles Track the harder it would become. The track is well marked and the park notes are all you really need, I used Tyrone Thomas' notes from his book 40 Great Walks In Australia, John Daly has also written this walk up in one of his books. This was the last of the four walks that I did in Watarrka National Park on this trip, if you're considering a trip to the Red Centre and are wavering over whether or not to visit Kings canyon then I would highly recommend it.

Normally most of these waterholes would be bone dry.