We circled the English couple, all of us trying to find the way out of the enclosed area we were in. We had the option of a climb round the edge of a barrier, seemingly heading up to a precipice, or round a corner to a sheer face up. While we tried the corner, the other couple followed the fence line , eventually spotting a marker to prove it was the correct way. We continued along the path, almost seeming as if we were walking on a Star Trek film set of a dark mysterious planet. A bit of smoke and some eery lights and you could be forgiven for thinking you were light years away.
Eventually we came across some other tourists also following the path, or more accurately, dangling off the edge of a 30ft cliff while another of their party balanced a camera to get the shot. I jumped in and took the picture for them, before approaching the edge myself and seeing how far and steep the drop was. Health and safety seem to consist of a warning side about cliff faces - if you were stupid enough to fall over the edge than natural selection would ensure you had no future generations to make the same mistake. As we got further and further round, Doug was more and more concerned with how long his water would last - it was HOT. In a couple of places along the route, the path split. A sign declaring a viewing area, or special feature just "600m Return" Walking out 600+ meters the first led to some amazing overhangs, where we were unsurprised to learn that one of the group id taken a photo for had just lost her sunglasses over the side. Taking heed, I removed my own sunglasses before belly crawling to the edge to see how little was supporting my weight.
We passed through "The Lost City" - mounds made by erosion in clean straight lines, and made another return offcut to "The Garden of Eden" so that Doug could sit in the shade for a bit while I explored around.
WE also spotted a large metal box sitting well off the path, which of course I had to find a way to explore. Once I had finally navigated my way over crevices and dry grass beds (careful to listen for the sound of an angry snake before pushing my bare ankles through) it turned out to have some signs nearby describing one of the varieties of lizard, and had been closed with rocks and a metal toolbox. Last time I had seen one off these boxes, it had been on a TV show about how they transported Crocodiles from swamp to hospital or zoo or released captures animals to the wild. I still have no idea what they were transporting, but I figured there was good reason for it not being near the pathway.
The second half of the walk dragged on a bit. The impressive views were the same as they had looked an hour before from the other side of the canyon, and we were now going in a gradual downhill direction. The method for going down hill was to climb up 5 steps then drop 10, then climb 5 and drop 10. A tedious and frustrating way to travel, but we were back at the car park by 2.45 - 45 mins past my original estimate but with an extra 2.4k travelled (assuming the 600m wasn't just a made up figure, if definitely wasn't the return distance) - so all in all a success.
After topping up the water supplies, we planned our next leg of the drive. Out the canyon to the resort, and we'd then either follow the 4wd drive only track to Palm Valley (a wondrous place filled with palm trees and blue lagoons we were told), or camp up for the night.
The decision was made to continue, so after some cold drinks and ice cream, we set out on the track. The track took us through aboriginal land and so we had to have a permit. Instantly, we realised this track was in a much much worse condition than any other we'd been on. The first thing we didn't when arriving on it was to let the pressure out of the tyres. At one point, the tarmac returned for some winds, which happened to be hairpin bends going up the side of the mountain with no warning, caught out Doug grasped white knuckled as we turned the corner, barely in our own lane. This time the white knuckle grip was justified and the speed instantly came down so the next 3 bends which were just as steep were navigated without incident.
The track was deeply rutted, and some entertaining soul had obviously decided based on a map that the speed limit was 120kph. At almost half that, the car still hit small bumps with enough jolt to keep Doug from snoozing. With the windows down to cool us, I heard a rhythmical thwacking sound. Pulling over, I'd punctured the tyre. The deflated rubber was deformed out of shape, almost unrecognisable as a tyre. This would be our first tyre change.
The sun was boiling down, and I worked as quickly as I dared to start extracting the jack and wrenches. Starting the tedious process of jacking the car, Doug stretched over the front seats with his head poking out occasionally giving directions. The sweat was pouring off me as I tried to manually jack up the car, until Doug found the vital part id missed, still in the car which saved a lot of the hassle. Almost instantly the car was jacked enough. Enough to realise that the weight of the car made the jack sink into the sand.
Doug eventually got out to lend a hand, and we extracted the planks of wood we'd packed for exactly this eventuality. Jacking again for the second time, we got the jack to the full extent and realised it still wasn't off the ground enough to free the flat wheel, let alone put a fresh tyre on. Removing as many items as we could from the back of the car to relieve the suspension didn't help enough, nor did driving the car to a better position to disengage the suspension. Eventually, all out of ideas, hot sweaty and with the sun still bearing down on us relentlessly, i had the idea of digging a hole around the wheel. Just 1 wheel, and just a big enough hole to get a new tyre in. 30 minutes of hard shovel work later, we were able to attach the spare tyre. Both of us by this point, we at the point of collapse, and I made the call to go back to Kings Canyon resort- a drive of less than an hour, compared to the 1.5 minimum to Palm Valley.
It was with heavy hearts and eyes that we returned, limping the car back. The tyre had popped because I hadn't released enough air from the tyre - the baked red earth radiating such intense heat and increased the tyre pressure back up to 38+ and a bump in the road was enough to split the tyre from there. It was a heavy lesson to learn. We arrived back at Kings Canyon, hot, tired, and having not had anything to eat all day. We'd burnt the candle from both ends and we were well and truly reaching the middle at an alarming rate. We set up camp, and hit the swimming pool, then showers. Forcing each other to carry on, we eventually made it to dinner, where the heat and exhaustion was too much for me and I barely managed to force down a slice of pizza.
Dinner over, we headed back to finally sleep. Realising we hadn't passed word of our safety on because of the lack of Internet, I gathered up some coins to call Maria and fill her in, having already tried to reverse charge the call.
It was at this stage we found out NT were also running on a time difference, and we'd been misled when we were told only SA was different. So we'd turned up to Sunrise at 4.30am - no wonder there had been no one there and the park was so peaceful! As I hung up the phone, a bright lightning flash drew my attention to the sky. A dark dark storm cloud was rolling in, with lightning striking all the way along the horizon. This is not what we needed at all, and so the tent/swag was re-pegged in preparation - my only hope being that the storm would bring some cool weather overnight. Exhaustion at its max, my head barely hit the pillow before I was asleep.
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