The alarm went off at stupid o’clock this morning so we can get to the start of the walk early. The advice is to start the walk at first light that way you are on the way up as the sun comes up and the colours of the rock are wonderful. This would be ok apart from the fact that first light is about 5.30, sunrise was 5.53 but the park doesn’t open until 6.00! Talking to reception he said that all the coaches leave at about 5.55 to get up the canyon early so we decided we would have some breakfast which luckily opens at 5.00 then went round to the start of the walk about 6.30. The reason everyone has to start the walk so early is that the forecast today is for it to reach 36C and once that happens they close the walk after 9.00 so you can only start it before 9.00 as it is scheduled to take between 3 4 hours. The first part of the walk is the hardest as it is quite steep and not very even and is definitely the hardest part it was also the busiest bit of the walk as a lot of the groups were spread out over the climb. There wasn’t much looking around as we made our way up this bit but once we got to the top it was spectacular as the rock is sandstone and has been weathered over the years there are ripples that look like they were made by water ebbing and flowing over the sand then suddenly ‘froze’ The walk follows the ridge line of the canyon rim and there are a number of lookouts along the way but to be honest the whole thing is stunning the only problem for me was looking while walking! About half way round you are faced with a set of steps which take you down the side of the cliff face to what they call the Garden of Eden, this is strange as it is in this desert landscape there is still a river running through it, there is a lot of vegetation and the water does look very clear. This is actually a mens sacred site for the Aboriginal’s which means that the story can’t be told and Aboriginal women are not allowed to visit the site, however they recognise that other cultures have different ways so they let everyone visit as long as you don’t touch the water for two reasons, mostly the fact it is a sacred site but also because sun-screen and insect repellant can quite quickly infect the water which is an important source of water for the animals that live on and around the rim, even though they say that some people do feel the need to touch the water but at least no-one was swimming in it. We walked all the way along the river to the waterhole then turned round and walked back to continue the rim walk however first we had to make it up a different set of stairs! From there the walk just continues around the rim with more stunning rock formation and colours. We finished the walk just after 10:00 so it had taken us about 3.5 hours which was nice as we hadn’t rushed it at all. Once we got back to the room we changed into our swimming costumes and went for a swim in the pool then just sat and relaxed by the pool until just after lunch when it started raining! We came back to the room and relaxed before going out to eat later and hopefully do some more star gazing but it may not be possible as there are quite a few clouds about.
