We camped last night in what is called a 'bush camp', which is to say it was miles from civilisation, out in the bush. There is some electricity in this one for hot water, lights in the loos and kitchen, from solar panels. Some bush camps have only candles and you cook on a fire, so this was relative luxury! However, the tents were small and very hot, so we decided this time we would sleep outside in a swag.
A swag is a rolled up canvas bag with a mattress inside it. You unzip the canvas, put your sleeping bag inside, and zip yourself into sleeping bag and canvas swag. In my case, I have a silk inner sleeping bag, so I was inside that too. In fact, it being a hot night, I started out just inside the silk inner bag, with the canvas of the swag just loosely covering me. As the night went on and it got colder, I got inside the sleeping bag and zipped up the swag. It was nice to sleep out under the stars, and somewhat better than the airless little tent. The main problem was the dry little wind, which desiccated me overnight so I was a bit dehydrated when I woke up, and staggered a lot. I am really sad to have no photos, but it was dark both when we unrolled the swags and at 5.30 when we rose and rolled them up again.
There were also not enough loos and showers, and there were queues; some idiot had left the door open and the light on, so the place was full of moths practically the size of bats. I was physically incapable of stripping naked to shower with such monsters in the place, so shut the door and took my flip- flop in my hand and murdered them all.
The purpose of the 5.30 start was so we could breakfast and pack and leave by 6.30 and be at Kings Canyon for 7 to start a 3 and a half hour walk. By 11, the temperature would probably be 36 degrees, and possibly up to 10 degrees above that if you were walking on any bare rock faces. There were two walks on offer, the difficult and steep one around the canyon rim, and a less demanding and shorter one along Kings Creek.
We opted for the shorter walk, and watched some of our fellow passengers starting the stiff climb up to the canyon rim.
It was really quite pleasant walking at 7a.m. in the relative cool along a shady path, and our walk followed what would be the creek bed, were there any water.
The gum trees were very tall, showing that they were very old, and their deep roots were able to access underground water. In fact, there was a great deal of vegetation for such a dry area.
We walked as far as permitted by the park rules. The creek is a sacred area, so you are not meant to go right to the end. However, we had a very good view of the head of the canyon.
We headed back for the shade, where we had about two hours to wait for those of our fellow travellers who had opted for the longer, hotter walk. I got dehydrated again and found it hard to stand. As i was sitting in the shade, i had failed to drink enough -the water tasted nasty.
We drove off to a place where we could make an early lunch, and by just after 12, we were off to start a 6 hour drive to Marla where we are to spend the night. On our way, we stopped at the border between South Australia and the Northern Territory.
After dark, we arrived at Marla, which is a cattle station; it has a roadhouse, a caravan and camping site, and a motel. We have a motel room - no more camping for us!
There is no phone signal of any sort, so no idea when this can be posted -we are in the middle of nowhere.
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