See & Do / Adventure / Pioneering the Outback

We came out from England in 1952 and it was a huge cultural difference. It's got this real charm, the remoteness, but was a shock to mum. Her family were horrified to think we had moved to a desert.

The concept of a desert like the Sahara is what people had in mind, whereas this is not a desert like the Sahara. There are so many landforms and features and colours. The ancient nature of the land, it just appeals, it gets you.

We literally cut tracks through remote areas in order to access places, particularly Kings Canyon. We weren't the first, but it was still very remote, inaccessible almost. The only roads in existence followed riverbeds.

It was Arthur Liddle from Angas Downs who told us about the Canyon in the 1960's. It was less than 200kms of actual distance, but it took us two and half days, because there were no roads, you just followed the rivers and sandy creek beds.

It was a drought time. You had all this brilliant red sand, yellow and ochre colours. Within about 50kms of Kings Canyon, we camped overnight, and low and behold it rained, massive thunderstorms and lightening. You could hear it echoing through the gorges.

So when we first saw the canyon, it was in drizzling rain. The colours were pastel shades, instead of being the brilliant red of the walls. The rocks in the bottom of the canyon all water worn and smooth, glistening in the rain. It was quite spectacular.

After that we went back and walked around. We found a plateau with all these rounded domes, like oversized beehives, with sort of roadways going between them. This is why we called it the Lost City.

As we walked further around we found a valley with all this lush vegetation in it, cycads, gum trees, a whole swag of different of types of plants, so we called it the Garden of Eden.

When we saw it first it was pristine, natural, no tracks, no footprints. You can still see the natural beauty today.