REGAL SPLENDOUR
ALIGHTING A PLANE AT ULURU is the ultimate full stop for most people on a journey to the Red Centre. But I have had the privilege of seeing the Rock a few times in my life; today my imagination is being stirred by another form on the landscape some 300 kilometres away. Rather than being a full stop, this is just a pit stop.
The next leg of my journey to Kings Canyon, a cavernous gouge in the ancient red earth, involves a 45-minute light-plane journey over the relentlessly flat, dry landscape, given texture by sandy scrub and dark green bushes that look like freckles from this height. Visual distraction is provided by the otherworldly visage of Lake Amadeus, which stretches so far (it is 180 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide) that it disappears from view in a soft haze before you can see its actual edge; the salt lake’s sun-bleached greys and blues stand in stark contrast
