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“Hiking around in the Outback” |
Day two of my Outback tour started after a night spent out in the Outback at my tour's motel accommodation. That night I decided to go lay out under the stars for awhile. And, boy I'm glad that I did. Wow! Talk about amazing. I have never seen so many stars in my life. We're talking thousands! And, the Milky Way was so clear. It was like a real planetarium as there were no buildings with big bright lights nearby or buildings to block the view. Just spectacular. I would go back to the Outback just to look at the stars again. One of the big highlights of my trip for sure. And, it was free - even better!
But, the next day's plan was to visit Kings Canyon. I'll be honest - I had no idea what it was all about - but many Aussies told me I had to visit it. And, basically there is a huge mountain range in the outback and we were going to go do a hike in one of its famous canyons. Cool.
The hike began on Heart Attack hill. I'm assuming a few 'incidents' have happened to have the hill named it. It was a good chug pretty much straight up for 20 minutes. But, even though I was a bit sore from my Ayers Rock climb the day before - it felt super easy just because I knew I wasn't going to die from falling down the rocky hill (unless I had a heart attack!). Ayers Rock felt like hiking bootcamp (which will be great when I go backpacking back home in the summer).
After conquering heart attack hill - we were at the top of the canyon and the rest of our trek was around the rim. It was really neat red rock. Reminded me a bit of Arizona or what you would imagine the Grand Canyon would look like (seeing I've never been there). The day was gorgeous too. Hot and sunny. We all had tons of water on us, as many people get heat exhaustion hiking around the Outback.
Since the Outback was at one time at the bottom of the ocean (were talking many millions of years ago), our guide was pointing out apparent fossils in the rock of jellyfish and other sea creatures. Plus, there were ferns up there that are only a few parts of vegetation that can be traced back to the dinosaur era!
The lookouts were spectacular all around the hike. And, our guide liked to set up 'stellar' photo ops of us posing in random places.
Halfway through the hike we climbed down into a valley in the rock and found ourselves into the Garden of Eden - basically a lush valley of trees and water pools. We went for dip in the refreshing water and even swam across the pool to go check out a secret look out that gave us a great view down the canyon.
The hike was great (hence the many photos I took that day). And, after that we headed back to Alice.
We stumbled upon a few 'wild' things this day. Including, camels and horses. The camels were released into the desert after the railroad was constructed way back in the day and have flourished ever since (much to their surprise - like 300,000-700,000 camels). And, we also saw wild horses galloping in the bushes which was really cool. I had no idea those were in the Outback as well.
Another great highlight of the Outback was when we stopped on the long drive home to watch the light fade in the sky from the setting sun. It was beautiful - especially since there were no buildings to block the view and the terrain was super flat. It was awesome.
When I make it back to Australia someday - I definitely would love to return to the Outback as it really is a different world and camping out there I think would be amazing.
previous travel blog entry
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