Kings Canyon (Watarrka)

Where it sits. Kings Canyon cuts into the western end of the George Gill Range in Watarrka National Park, in the southern Northern Territory. It is 474 kilometres from Alice Springs by sealed road via the Stuart and Lasseter highways, or 321 kilometres on the shorter Larapinta Drive and Ernest Giles Road route, most of which is unsealed and four-wheel-drive only. Uluru lies about 300 kilometres to the south-west, and the two are almost always visited on the same loop. The canyon's sandstone walls exceed 100 metres, and the sheer south face is one of the most abrupt vertical drops in central Australia.

The story behind it. Watarrka is a Luritja word for the umbrella bush that grows through the range, and the Luritja people have lived in this country for at least 20,000 years. There are sacred sites within the canyon that remain closed to visitors, and the park is jointly managed. Geologically the canyon is a slice through two sandstones: Mereenie Sandstone forms the upper cliffs and the domes, resting on softer Carmichael Sandstone perhaps 440 million years old, with a thin purple shale band between them that acts as an aquiclude. Water percolates down through the porous upper layer, hits the shale, and emerges as springs — which is why a permanent waterhole exists in the middle of a desert. The gorge itself has been forming for over 400 million years.

On screen. Kings Canyon carries the closing image of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994): Mitzi, Felicia and Bernadette climbing to the rim in full drag regalia, gowns and headdresses against red rock, the film's entire argument delivered in a single landscape shot. That it was filmed here at all is a matter of record worth knowing — the production first sought permission to shoot the sequence at Uluru and was refused, on the grounds that the rock's religious significance to its traditional owners made it inappropriate. The filmmakers moved to Kings Canyon instead, and the substitution improved the scene: the canyon's rim gives an elevated edge and a horizon that Uluru's flanks could not have provided. Visitors still climb the Rim Walk with the film in mind, and the tourism industry around the canyon dates in large part from its release.

What you actually see today. Two main walks leave the car park.

• The Rim Walk is six kilometres, three to four hours, graded moderate to difficult. It opens with roughly 500 steps — the "Heart Attack Hill" of local nomenclature — then follows the canyon's south rim past the domed sandstone field known as the Lost City, drops on a wooden staircase into the Garden of Eden with its permanent waterhole and cycads, climbs back out along the north rim and returns. Walk it clockwise and start at dawn.
• The Kings Creek Walk is a flat 2.6-kilometre return along the canyon floor to a viewing platform beneath the walls, suitable for most fitness levels.
• A separate 22-kilometre Giles Track links the canyon to Kathleen Springs for overnight walkers.

The park protects more than 750 plant species, sixty of them found nowhere else, including relict cycads surviving in the shaded gorges from a wetter climatic era. Eighty bird species are recorded, and black-footed rock wallabies, dingoes and perenties are seen regularly. The Lost City repays slow walking: the domes are cross-bedded, banded in cream and rust, and separated by narrow sand-floored corridors that are hard to read from any photograph taken from the rim.

Getting there and timing. Almost everyone arrives by road as part of the Red Centre Way, either from Alice Springs or from Yulara. Fuel, food and accommodation are concentrated at Kings Canyon Resort and Kings Creek Station, both a short drive from the trailhead; there is nothing else for hundreds of kilometres. May to September is the walking season, with cold clear nights that can drop below freezing and comfortable days. From October the heat rules bite: Parks and Wildlife closes the Rim Walk at 9am whenever the forecast reaches 36°C, and rangers enforce it. Carry at least three litres of water per person on the rim; there is no shade and no water on the route. Sunrise light hits the north wall first and is the reason to be at the car park before six.