This resort, far from everywhere, is pure magic

The hotel

King’s Canyon Resort, Northern Territory

Check in

The beauty of Kings Canyon is that it’s such a long way from anywhere. And the downside? It’s so far from everywhere. From Alice Springs, for example, it’s a five-hour drive, and from Uluru, four hours.

This luxe outback resort is ultra remote.

That makes it the kind of destination that’s best to visit as part of a longer trip, maybe combining it with Uluru or a meandering 4WD road trip around the 1140-kilometre Red Centre Way. But it’s certainly worth the effort. Check-in after the three-hour, 10-minute flight from Sydney to Alice, and then the long drive, is quick, efficient, and has never been more keenly anticipated.

The look

The resort strives pretty much to be all things to everyone from the campers to the guests in the campground lodge rooms, to those in the glamorous safari-style “tents” to others, like me, in the newly refurbished deluxe cabins.

Freestanding tubs let you admire the scenery, but happily no one can see in.

Some areas of the resort are purely populist, like the freshly-renovated tin-roofed and partly open-air Kings Canyon Bar & Grill with its hearty meals; others are more modern minimalist with an outback twist, displaying fabulous photos of desert scenery and outback paintings on the walls and hints of Indigenous design.

Service

Service is friendly with everyone going out of their way to be helpful, although sometimes staff are not quite as efficient as you’d hope. The young man behind the desk went to great pains to tell me there was little internet in the rooms, and I’d have to come to reception to connect, which meant I didn’t try until the second day – when I found it worked perfectly well. It would also have been good to have had some information in the room. A phone with no indication even on how you call reception is almost worse than useless.

The room

The resort offers multiple accommodation types, but none more luxurious than the newly refurbished deluxe cabins.

The room’s hero is a huge, deep, free-standing bath in front of a picture window, looking out over the red desert dust and craggy sandstone cliffs. While you can spend a long time here, admiring the scenery from the comfort of air-conditioning and suds, happily, no one can see in. There’s also a private separate outdoor area with chairs and a table. Inside there’s a king bed, an over-sized flat-screen TV, sofa, chairs and plenty of storage. Bottles of water are supplied and a kettle, tea and coffee.

Food + drink

There are two restaurants on site: the relaxed bar and grill with its wood-fired pizzas, burgers and barbecue; and Carmichael’s Restaurant, which specialises in gourmet outback fare with native ingredients – think crocodile goujons, barramundi in paperbark, braised kangaroo shoulder and eye fillet with a pepperberry jus. The adventurous can try the outback platter of kangaroo, emu, croc, camel and date sausages, bush greens salads and wattleseed dukkah. There’s also the option of the special five-course, open-air Under a Desert Moon dinner, around a flickering firepit. Or there’s the new bar at the Luritja Lookout, a platform that’s perfect for admiring the sunsets over a cold beer.

Out + about

Bruce Munro’s Light Towers.

The stars of the area are its landscapes, the ancient red sandstone of Carmichael’s Crag and the George Gill Range, the ochre and spinifex of the desert and the pure magic of being in the heart of Australia. The three-hour Rim Walk offers stunning views across the canyon, a series of mini-Bungle Bungle-like domes, waterholes surrounded by lush greenery and… 500 steps. There are also more gentle hikes, a helicopter tour to retrace your steps, several Indigenous cultural experiences, and the site’s newest attraction, the massive art installation Light Towers by artist Bruce Munro which you can wander through. They cast a glow at sunrise, sunset and in the evening.

The verdict

The scenery stirs the spirit in ways you simply don’t expect, and it’s bewitching to meet, and talk with Indigenous people on their traditional lands. It’s also wondrous to be able to stay in luxury when the heat and flies become too much.

The essentials

Deluxe rooms from $480 a night, including breakfast; for the cheapest rooms, the lodge rooms, from $158. See discoveryholidayparks.com.au

Our rating out of five

★★★★½

Highlight

Lying back in a bath full of bubbles for a long, hot soak after completing the Rim Walk, watching the colours on the desert and cliffs in front turning gold with the setting sun.

Lowlight

Would have loved a better selection of teas and coffee in the room, including decaf coffee and at least one herbal tea.

The writer stayed as a guest of Kings Canyon Resort.