We left Ayers Rock yesterday and travelled a few hundred kilometres further north to our next destination - Kings Canyon - and after the last couple of days of walking we treated ourselves to a nice lazy afternoon before heading out to one of the viewing platforms to watch the sunset against the changing colours of Kings Canyon.

Today we were back in walking mode as we set off on a six kilometre hike around the rim of the canyon. When we got to the start of the trail there were several signs warning that the first section was very steep and the walk should only be attempted by people of a reasonable fitness early in the morning. After reading the warnings we looked up and could see this part was up some pretty large steps and decided it would be best to ignore the signs and we headed off up the steps. However, it soon became clear that we had underestimated just how steep the incline was and how big each step was as we climbed on up and by the time we got to the first resting platform we were both sweating and puffing! The steps continued on up further still until we finally made it to the top and the way flattened off and we managed to look back over the way we had come and realised just how high we had climbed over such a short distance.

From here the walk took us further away from the edge of the rim and around some boulders until we were walking in between two ridges that formed a valley that the path continued along. All along the walk the rocks were towering above us and because of the way that they had formed, with several layers acting like steps, they offered lots of opportunities to climb up them and lots of nooks and crannies to investigate.

A little along the way there was a detour to one of the lookouts that took us over a bridge and up along the edge of the canyon. From here we could see down into a pool below us with a few people sitting in around in the shade - all of which looked very tempting to us in the direct midday sunlight! We could also see out over the canyon and across to the other side where there were more people walking along the edge and we could really get an appreciation of just how huge the canyon is as the people looked like little dots against the mass of the sheer canyon wall. We walked carefully along as there were no barriers along the wall and several signs had warned of unstable surfaces, rock falls and overhangs and these signs we did pay attention to! When we returned to the bridge we looked back and could see that most of the area that we had been on was in fact a huge overhanging section of rock.

Once we were back on the main track we continued further along passed more rock stacks until we came to a boardwalk that led us down into a valley known as the Garden of Eden, which was a thriving rainforest ecosystem in the middle of the rock. It was quite bizarre to walk from the heat and harsh landscape of the canyon ridge into the calm of the sheltered vegetation and all around us we could hear birdsong and the sound of the water running on the valley floor. We followed the detour path around until it came out at the pool that we had seen from above, where we stayed for a while listening to the animals and enjoying the cool of the shade.

Before too long we were back on our feet again heading back along the way we had come in on until we reached the fork in the path and headed up out of the valley and back onto the canyon rim once more. From here we could see back across much of the way that we had already come and the hundreds of the rock stacks that had loomed above us now resembled a series of hills rising up from the floor like spikes on an animal's back.

The pathway now wound its way along the other side of the canyon until the next lookout point at the top of the sheer rock wall we had spotted earlier, although this wasn't so much a lookout point as much as an opportunity to get perilously close to the edge of a perfectly vertical rock face! Needless to say we crept forwards quite slowly until we could see straight down the couple of hundred metres or so to the rocks below to take a few photos before hastily retreating to the relative safety of the pathway.

Soon after this we started our descent into the valley again as the path snaked along the canyon, through a briefly forested area, across more rock formations than you can shake a stick at and finally came out at the top of some more rocky steps. Thankfully the descent was much gentler than our initial climb and we made it to the floor without too much bother to complete the circuit before returning to camp once again.

Tomorrow we are heading back into South Australia after our brief stint in the Northern Territory to check out the sights and sounds of Coober Pedy.