On our third day of the Rock Tour, we were again woken up very early so that we could see the sunrise at King’s Canyon and do our hiking while it wasn’t so hot out. The hike through the canyon was not too bad, with the only difficult part being the very steep stairs at the beginning. The canyon was absolutely beautiful, and we made sure to stay far from the edge.
My favorite thing that we saw that day, and possibly my favorite thing from the whole Rock Tour was the Garden of Eden. This is a place in the middle of the canyon that always has water, even though it rains so rarely. We climbed down the stairs and it was like being in a completely different climate. There were so many more tropical plants and it was so much cooler – much different from all the red rock, sand, and desert plants we had seen during the last two days. The water was so calm and quiet and it was nice being able to sit in the cool, peaceful garden surrounded by huge walls of red rock.
After heading back out of the Garden of Eden, we continued through the canyon and Damo pointed out different lizards and plants that we saw along the way. There was even a plant that was over 500 years old! Also, some of the rock that we saw in King’s Canyon had wave-like patterns because it was at one point the bottom of a river, so the sand had rippled and then put under pressure until it became solid rock.
After leaving the canyon, our destination for that night, Alice Springs, was a couple hours drive away. We stopped for lunch and then at a camel farm. Some people rode the camels and we got to see and pet them, which was a fun break from sitting on the bus. That evening we got to Alice Springs and were all dropped off at our different hostels. The first thing I did when I got there was take a nice long shower. It felt so good to not have red sand all over me.
It was another long day, but a great end to our tour. The next morning, Diana and I took the shuttle back to the Ayers Rock airport (about 5 hours away) and then flew to Sydney, where I would stay for a few more days. Diana was heading back to Christchurch, so I said goodbye to her there. She made an incredible video documenting the week and a half that we were travelling together, so I will post that in a separate post.
Hammond Adventures 
Looks amazing.