Deals > Explore > Uluru-Kata Tjuta > Watarrka National Park
Kings Creek Station
Kings Creek Station is a working cattle property just south of Watarrka National Park. It covers some 1800 square kilometres and offers budget accommodation, fuel, food and a wide range of activities for the adventurous visitor like camel rides, quad biking and helicopter flights over Kings Canyon.
Kathleen Springs
Kathleen Springs is a tranquil, spring-fed waterhole at the head of the Kathleen Gorge in Watarrka National Park, about 20 kilometres from Kings Canyon. The springs can be reached by a 2.6-kilometre return walk that is easygoing for families and visitors with limited mobility. The springs are central to Aboriginal and pastoral histories of the area.
Mereenie Loop
The four-wheel-drive Mereenie Loop is the ‘adventure trail’ to Watarrka National Park and Kings Canyon Resort. From the Glen Helen Resort in the West MacDonnell Ranges, it is about 250 kilometres of mostly gravel road through mountain ranges and desert landscapes. Encounters with herds of wild camels and brumbies are common.
Ernest Giles Road
The Ernest Giles Road is the alternative four-wheel-drive route from the Explorer’s Way, south of Stuarts Well, connecting with Luritja Road and Kings Canyon. Named after explorer Ernest Giles, it is about 100 kilometres of gravel road that traverses ruggedly beautiful red sand dune and Desert Oak country.
Watarrka National Park is best known as the home of Kings Canyon, a mighty chasm cleaving the earth to a depth of 270 metres.
It is situated on the western edge of the George Gill Ranges, 300 kilometres to the north east of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and 310 kilometres west of Alice Springs. Drivers can reach Kings Canyon from Uluru in three hours by taking the Lasseter Highway and Luritja Road. Those with a four-wheel-drive and at least a day’s travelling time can take the unsealed Mereenie Loop from Alice Springs.
Watarrka is an important conservation area with rock holes and gorges providing refuge for over 600 species of plants and many native animals. The sheer red rock face of Kings Canyon soars over 100 metres above dense forests of palms, ferns and cycads; sheltering them from the surrounding desert conditions.
A moderately challenging six-kilometre walk takes in magnificent views of the Canyon rim, the weathered, buttressed domes of ‘the Lost City’ and the ‘Garden of Eden’ - a sheltered valley with permanent waterholes and lush vegetation. The walk is suitable for fit, relatively experienced walkers and can be completed in about three to four hours. For the less energetic, the shorter and easier Kings Creek walk leads into the centre of the Canyon.
Derived from an Aboriginal word referring to the umbrella bush that thrives here, Watarrka National Park has been home to the Luritja people for more than 20,000 years. The area was little known to Europeans until recently; Ernest Giles being the first white man to explore the area in 1872.
Accommodation (ranging from motel-style to campsites) is available at the Kings Canyon Resort, seven kilometres from the Park, where there’s also a service station and a shop. Kings Creek Station, 35 kilometres from the Park also has campsites and budget style accommodation.
