Day 18 - Kings Canyon

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

This is the centre of Australia, Johan says softly, breaking the silence. You mean this place in particular? Yes. The belly button of Australia. The soul of Australia, he says. Johan doesn’t speak often or easily about soulful things, so I sense something important is happening for him.

We sit astride the Garden of Eden, the end of a side track on the 6.5 km rim walk around Kings Canyon. The walk goes through extraordinary scenery, 400 million years of compressed sand, from back when the centre of Australia was an inland sea, which now presents as crumbling and very impressive red rock canyons. The 600 metre side trip takes you down through one of the canyons, which stores water from past rain events in still, cool, black-green ponds with river gums and 400-year-old cycad palms (remnant flora from the dinosaur era) gathering to produce a scenery that is pretty close to what one might imagine the Garden of Eden to be. At the end of the trail is a deep pool with sheer red rock encircling it. In days past, Aboriginal men would gather here for secret men’s business. The sign suggests to approach the place with silence and reverence.

Another couple sits quietly in the cove. We sit a ways away. All of us quiet, allowing the silence. A young couple arrives, senses the sanctum, looks around, walks away. The older couple stands and the woman whispers, So Beautiful. We nod and smile in agreement. We sit in their spot and soak in the stillness, emptiness. It’s one of those unexpected blessings, I whisper after a time. Fifteen minutes of solitude in a place like this.

We return to the main trail. Where is everyone? Till now the trail has been full of people. A popular trail in an off-the-beaten track of central Australia. When we arrived in the carpark, a couple of tour buses, dozens of 4WDs were there. A train of people were climbing the long ascent to the rim trail. Despite the warning signs – You Must be Fit, Healthy, Hydrated – the trail’s reputation draws people upward. Families with young children, even babies, old people with walking sticks, young couples with shorts and muscly smooth-skinned legs. Despite my edge of cynicism – there are three First Aid stations enroute, including defibulators, emergency phones, and helo-pads – safety above all else – we follow the snaking train of hikers.

My scepticism melts when we meet the splendour of the trail. The Northern Territory may yet to be great road builders, but this is by far the most exquisite trail experience I’ve had. Arrowed posts guide hikers along the route, but we are free to choose our own path, hopping rocks and climbing natural stairwells through the rocky red corridors. We walk through a 400-million-year-old living museum.

The apex of the trail reveals the wonder of the canyon – sheer rock faces, three, four stories high, striated in red, pink, yellow, white, ochre and black. We sit close to the cliff edge and eat lunch.

People are congregated on the other side of the chasm. They call out to us and wave their arms. Good-time Aussies on a bus tour. We wave back, which excites them. Next thing we know, the crowd of 10-12 – the young side of middle-age -- is calling out in unison, Coooo-eee!! It echoes on the walls. They want us to return the call. But we and a few other scattered couples aren’t together. They plead with us. We shift uncomfortably and the others pretend not to hear. We all ignore the bait and the moment passes.

We are of the Quiet People. We can barely hear each other, I quip, let alone get others to hear us. I’m sure it would do us good, in that personal growth sort of way, to muster the courage to bellow out from deep within our core muscles to strangers across a divide. But probably neither of us feels it would work. Like mice pretending to be lions.

But put us in a still place, vacant of people, birds’ wings and a light breeze the only sounds, and we are in our element. Quiet people. Quiet places.

Which isn’t to say that solitude is our only yearning. Strangely, there is something about caravan parks, more than their convenience and utility, that strikes a chord of communal longing in me. Their noises, their generators, their bright lights and strong smells bother me, yes. But the fellowship and families, our unique expressions in how we create the story of our life-on-the-road, the fact that we’re all in this together, laid bare in our open and congested campsites with no doors and curtains to hide behind – there is something sweet and homely in this. Belonging to an age gone past when neighbours were friends and everyone looked out for each other.

I meet this again when we arrive at our campsite for the night, a 24-hour scenic pull-out on the gravel road heading north out of the park and through Aboriginal territory. The permit we purchased at the Kings Canyon Resort says we aren’t allowed to stop or stay overnight on the 151 km section of the road that passes through native title land. But by four in the afternoon, half a dozen campers have already set up camp for the night at the rest stop, which sports a camping symbol on a sign that confirms: 24-hour Camping Permitted.

We choose a spot between two caravan campers, overlooking the wide valley below with the canyon hills we just hiked through in the far distance. Our neighbour, a woman my age, calls hello and a few minutes later ambles over for a chat. Later, two men, also 60-ish, drive in, their 4WD Toyota pulling a TrackStar camper trailer similar to ours. They see us and come over to chat about our trailers, our travels, and other things.

The camaraderie is enjoyable. Different. Welcome for two people used to the Quiet.