Day 2 @ The Outback

We woke up early the next morning (6 a.m., or was it earlier?!). After rolling up the swags and sleeping bags and loading everything back in the vehicles, we had breakfast and made our way to Kings Canyon. The canyon is situated within the Watarrka National Park. Armed with water, hats and sunscreen, we began our walk around it's rim just as the sun was rising over it. The initial part of the 6 km, 3-4 hour walk was a steep climb (also known as "heart attack hill") but the view from the top was totally worth it - you could see the gorge below as well as the rest of the surrounding landscape. Further our guide Vicky then quizzed us on the difference between a gorge and a canyon, and we were informed that the Grand Canyon in the States is actually a gorge...."but we can let the Americans call it a canyon!" . The walk took us through high sandstone walls as well as a plateau of rocky domes. There were several lookout points and needless to say everyone was busy clicking photographs for large part of the time. As we made our way down to the Garden of Eden we crossed over from a rugged, rocky landscape and found ourselves surrounded by pretty thick vegetation - palms, cycads and ferns. The Garden of Eden was a sheltered permanent waterhole, and to see th sunlight being reflected in it in colours of red, yellow and green was just amazing. Further along the rim we crossed a point where you could see imprints of (sea) waves in the ground - a reminder of what was there thousands of years ago. Walking along the rocky dome formations, we eventually made our way back to the base.

From there we drove out to Kings Creek Cattle Station where we had lunch, and saw kangaroos at long last!! I must mention here that atleast as far as the vegetarians are concerned, we probably got the best food of the entire trip in the Outback :) A big thank you to the people from Wayoutback for that. Post lunch we drove down to the property belonging to Rob and Craig Ross at Oak Valley. On the way we listened to some really nice songs, courtesy Tom's CD. The one that had everyone humming was 'Hallelujah' from Shrek :)

By evening we reached the campsite, where again we spread out our respective swags and tried to figure out where some of the sleeping bags had disappeared! (eventually everyone had one by the time they hit the sack). People then gathered around the campfires and talked, sang songs, played games and had dinner which I still remember but it will take too much and too long for me to write about it! After that everyone gradually went to bed. And yes, the temperature did go below zero that night....
-Soumya