Kings
Canyon Australia is a fantastic place to visit.
Watarrka National Park is one of the
greatest national
parks in the Northern Territory.
It's mostly known for Kings
Canyon, but it covers 71,000 hectares of red rugged country and pockets
of lush vegetation in gorges and rock holes south-west of Alice
Springs in the outback Northern
Territory.
Geology
Watarrka National Park is part of George Hill Ranges and it’s much
younger than the neighbouring West
Macdonnell Ranges.
Watarrka’s sandstone
was formed from sediments laid about 440 million years ago – about the
time of the Cambrian Explosion,
when a lot of species all “suddenly”
(in geological terms) evolved and the first life appeared on land. Aboriginal
people have lived here in 20,000 years
and the first Europeans appeared in the area in the 1870s.
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Plants and Animals in Watarrka National Park
The area was once covered by inland lakes and tropical woodlands, parts
of which remain today in deeper gorges where there are native figs, eucalypts
and cycads
which have survived from the times of dinosaurs.
There are about 600
other plant species in the area, including Spinifex grasses and some
rare plants that are not found elsewhere in the area. Animals include wallabies
and other smaller marsupials,
and the most obvious birds are
woodswallows and the spectacular Spinifex pigeons.
Spinifex pigeon. Poster by AllPosters. Click on thumbnail
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How to get Here
You can access the Watarrka National Park both via the Lasseter Highway
(the road to Uluru
and Kata Tjuta National Park) in the south, and the smaller,
unsealed Meereenee
Loop Road from the West
Macdonnell National Park in north. In the end
of the Mereenie Loop Road is Kings Canyon Resort at the northern
entrance to the national park. You can also get here by taking tours from Alice
Springs and tours that start from
Ayers Rock.
Mereenie Loop Road. Poster by AllPosters. Click on
thumbnail to
buy.
Luritja Road and Kathleen Springs
If you enter from the south, via the sealed Lassetter
Highway, you first come to Kathleen Springs, where there are picnic
tables, gas barbeques, toilets and a 2.6km walking track that takes you
to a cool waterhole. From Kathleen Springs, you can either drive north
towards the Kings Canyon, or you can hike the Giles Track
- a 22km bushwalking track that crosses the top of the range and goes
all the way to Kings Canyon, although you can exit (or enter, of
course) the track to Luritja Road half-way at Reedy Creek.
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Kings Canyon Short Walk
Once at the canyon, there is a picnic area with gas barbeques, toilets
and picnic tables, and not far from here are the starts of two walking
tracks. The shorter one – the 2.6km Kings Creek Walk
takes you along a gentle slope up to a lookout point.
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Kings Canyon Long Walk
The longer track, the 6km loop around the canyon rim, is a spectacular
walk that starts with a steep climb to the canyon rim and then goes
around the rim. The track has some good views over the canyon and
opportunities for great
photos.
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Lost City and Garden of Eden
Along the Canyon Walk there are the eroded pinnacles of the Lost City,
and some lush riverine vegetation around the Garden of Eden – a cool
swimming hole great for a dip on a hot day. To minimise erosion, this
walk has to be made in clockwise direction, and in the end it descends
to the car park.
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Kings Canyon Tours
There are free guided walks in Watarrka that start from the car park;
and helicopter flights are available from Kings Creek Station
Hotel and Voyages Resort.
You can also join
tours that take you here from Alice Springs
and Ayers Rock.
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Kings Canyon Accommodation
Camping in the bush is unfortunately not allowed in the Watarrka
National Park, but the Voyages Resort
offers
both luxury accommodation and shady campsites with barbeques, and it
also has a restaurant. There is also the Wilderness Lodge
& Resort, and
if you like a different kind of accommodation, try Kings Creek Station
Hotel some 35km
south of the canyon - it has good campsites, a shop, a pool, a kitchen,
a barbeque area and a billy-tea-and-damper evening entertainment.
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Here's a map of Watarrka National Park,
where I have
tagged the places that I mentioned on this web page. You can click on
the tags to see what places they are, and double-click anywhere on the
map to zoom it in and see the places closer. Drag the map to move
around, and if you want to see the satellite image with Google Earth,
click on "Sat" in the top right hand corner.
Note:
This site uses
British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will
find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all
correct in the language used in Australia.
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that all the information on this site is correct,
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