Day 7 Yulara to Kings Canyon

Well MY day started early with the arrival of a group of school kids who decided that mucking around in the amenities block would be a good thing. Oh ho ho not when there is a TEACHER within earshot, who wants to be ASLEEP. You can guess the rest!

We knew that the drive to Kings Canyon would be short so we didn’t hurry out of the Yulara Campground. Our camping companions who had the same itinerary had started out very early the previous morning needed a sleep in so they left a bit later than we did. We took our time stopping to check out Mt Connor properly and we climbed the dune across the road to take photos of the salt plain that is Lake Amadeus.

Kings Creek Station is a quick 250km from Yulara and we were there by lunchtime. We were shown to our campsite by a very jovial caretaker who apologised for not having done the gardening as he had been away for the previous 8 weeks. Goodness, we are in the outback. From all reports Kings Creek Station is regularly “gardened” and the recent rains had made keeping the place weed free a bit difficult.

Complete with pool, KCS is an oasis in the desert. Part cattle/camel station part holiday destination, we found the people working there to be fascinating and the owners present and generous with their time.

The real buzz (literally) happened when the sun went down. Exit stage left, all the flies that had been flying around your face (in your nose and ears) and enter stage right every other insect known to man. All of them. Any light that was turned on was an instant swarm that would have excited Shrek. It became almost impossible to use the laptops. So we didn’t.

Instead, we stared at the billions of stars that appeared in the skies above us. The kids reactions were priceless. When they first looked up and saw what was up there the general reaction was “phwoar!! Mum! Dad! Have you seen THAT? We had a campfire and our clever camping companion made fruit damper with 2 cans of beer in his camp oven. Better than hot cross buns any day.