Kings Canyon and Palm Valley

Yes ! - on a lovely sunny morning with a clear blue sky, the rim walk at Kings is a knockout (scenery - geology - flora.... the lot). Allow a few hours for that.
Palm Valley ? Wonderful ! You get to drive in along what is possibly the world's oldest river - the red sandstone geology is amazing (the colours the patterns etc.). There are several walks, from shorter to a few hours (the longest Mpara walk is my favourite). The palms are a highlight, but were recently discovered to be relatively young, compared to the previously held view that they were established a gazillion (a technical term) years ago. If you can get Namatjira drive into your loop, a visit to Ormiston Gorge and Gosse Bluff (meteorite crater) might be possible.

The rim walk at Kings Canyon was one of the highlights of our 3 month trip to NT last year. Needs to be done at least once in your lifetime.
Bob

Absolutely!! Kings Canyon is one of the most beautiful places I have had the pleasure to have visited.

And while you're in the area, 35k's east of Kings Canyon is Kings Creek Station, which is a great place to have a look at and soak up some of the local history.


Cheers

Brian

Yes, Kings Canyon is well worth the visit. Try to arrange your refueling so as not to get fuel there though. Keep your eyes open on the canyon walk and you might see some Spinifex pigeons. They blend beautifully with the red rock and will sit and let you walk past at a few meters.

Hi Shaz and Steve

How long do you have?

I agree that the Kings Canyon Rim walk was the best in Central Australia.Palm Valley was also lovely and there a a number of different walks. Both the East and the West MacDonnells were lovely too - especially the East.

We went on to Central Australia following our Kimberley trip in 2008. I have blogs here if you are interested - just check the My Blogs link hereunder and look for 2008. We spent a total of nine weeks in the Kimberley including three and half weeks on the Gibb River Road, including the spur to Kalumburu and the Mitchell Plateau. Some of the rest of our stay in Kununurra was down time. We went on to spend five weeks in Central Australia in and around Alice Springs, although this too included a few days on r&r.

Motherhen

Kings Canyon walk is very scenic all right, colours and landscapes that seem surreal.

I second Darians suggestion to try and incorporate a loop of the West Macdonnels in there, the gorges are well worth some time, large relaxing campgrounds if not a busy time, and plenty of birds and animals come in to drink.

If you fancy a good walk (half a day), Redbank Gorge is the starting point of the Mt Sonder summit walk.

Did all this a couple of years ago . . . We got the Glen Helen Station people to drop us out the west end of Mt Zeil range to the NW of Mt Sonder, bagged Zeil (NTs highest peak) and we walked 19 days back to Alice, once into Redbank Gorge via the Larapinta Track.
We got rain, lots of it, and it was FFREEEEEZING at times.

After we got in we cleaned up and next day did an Oka Palm Valley day trip, awesome, fine weather, the Finke R was running strong, and Palm Valley was beaut !!

Yes they're worth it.

There is a nice drive along the Finke River in the Fink Gorge National Park too for 4wd if you get sick of bitumen.

Kings Canyon is worth the trip. We did the rim walk in driving rain on the coldest day recorded for the area (early July 2010). There was a spectacular waterfall emanating from the pool at the end of the Garden of Eden. On the previous day we'd walked up the valley of the canyon as far as we could go. Just as well, the next day, the creek changed from a trickle to a sizeable creek flowing quite strongly so no-one could walk up the valley. We had to wade across the knee deep the creek to get back to the car park at the end of the walk. How many people get to see Kings Canyon in the wet? It was fantastic. We opted not to go to Alice via the Larapinta Drive, instead going back south on the sealed road.

Palm Valley.
We departing Alice Springs at around 7:00 am when we drove down to Palm Valley. The Finke River was running at the time so there were many wide shallow water crossing (July 2010). From Palm Valley, after a brief look at Hermannsburg, we headed along Namatjra Drive to Goss' Bluff , visited Tylers Lookout for a better perspective of Goss Bluff then up to Glen Helen Gorge and back to Alice. We ran out of daylight after we visited Ormiston Gorge and the Ochre Pits. We went back to Ormiston Gorge the next day for a better look and worked our way back to Alice Springs visiting all the places on interest along the way. Another very long but worthwhile day.

WBS