Mereenie Loop

This morning I woke up felling well rested and nearly as good as before visiting the hospital. After managing to get up we had some breakfast of porridge and banana before once again packing up all our stuff and leaving the resort. Our next stop was at the reception to get a permit for driving to Glen Hellen later that day, as we pass through aboriginal country on the way.

We drove back a bit to get to Kings Canyon itself and finally get a bit of exercise done. There were a ton of tourist there already. You can do rather a large amount of walk around and in to the canyon itself. The longest one is the Rim walk around the top of the canyon which takes up several hours. A lot of the other visitors had left early in the morning to do it, as if the temperature is just predicted or realistic above 36°C they close the walk at nine in the morning. Mum and me got there at about 10AM, so we chose a walk along the outside of the canyon before climbing to the top and looking down in to it. There were warning at the bottom saying what things to take and what to do. Walked up and started taking some pictures with some chattering Asians following along. Nearly at the top we met a few Japanese people coming the other way who did not seem equipped for the journey in any way and looked the part of being very uncomfortable in the heat. At the top we stopped for some pictures over a cliff edge in to the canyon and met a couple from Holland who I took some pictures off and vice versa. They carried on along the Rim walk even if it was officially closed (prediction had been 36°C) whilst mum and me carried on back down to the car to get moving. We planned on reaching Alice Springs that day and only had about six hours left to go. Went on to the off-road track that travels through the aboriginal country and saw dozens of wild horses. A van with some people my age passed who seemed happy to have reached the end of the gravel road near Kings Canyon. We carried on and got loads of pictures of wild horses and a few serious four wheel drives stirring up plumes of dust and sand behind them when they passed us. We were doing a good effort and trying to hamper their view with our own dust trail, but well, my tires are a bit thinner (saves me fuel on the road). We reached a crossing that turned of to Hermansberg and Glen Hellen and chose the way to Glen Hellen. We had been warned that Hermansberg was only accessible to four wheel drives with enough ground clearance. Also Glen Hellen has the road with the nicer gorges, if more tourist. Along that way mum saw her first kangaroo, a scraggly looking thing, on the side of the road. Still alive fortunately. Carried on and went to have a look at a gorge just before reaching Glen Hellen, but we would have spent another hour trying to get there so pressed on. There was a lookout looking out over the McDonnell ranges nearly next to the road so had a quick stop and mum saw her first dingo duck in to the bush. 

Carried on to Glen Hellen and put 10l of fuel in to get to Alice and bought some food for the way. It was four thirty by then and we wanted to see a few gorges so pressed on. The first gorge we came to was Ormiston Gorge and as we drove in we saw it had a camp site. Instead of being stressed out to see the rest we decided to camp here for the night and after building up the tent and having some dinner had a look at the gorge without hundred of other tourists being around. Walked back and wrote the blog before going to bed.

Track at GPSies.