Lose yourself in the universe's most beautiful canyons.
Visitors to Kaleida have the opportunity to spend a day exploring the Opal Canyons. Maps are provided to help visitors make the best of this location, and to pinpoint highlights such as the peaceful and quiet limestone caves, crystal clear pools and rivers, the largest opals set into the canyon's walls, routes or sections most open to the sky, and of course the location of the visiting party's camp.
Walking barefoot in the canyons is optional, but recommended due to the thick layer of soft sand underfoot, which makes a barefoot visit a pleasure in itself.
The Canyons offer wildlife-spotting opportunities in the form of athmook and kasulam, which use hollows and overhangs of the canyon rock as burrows, and khoricru and iskoss, which both shelter from predators and the mid-day sun.
A sit-down lunch is provided at the camp between mid-day and two O'clock, and visitors are invited either to re-enter the canyons after lunch or relax and enjoy the desert from the comfort of the camp.
A GPS device will be provided to all visitors to help them find their way back, as the canyons are many miles deep and we have not installed signs in the canyons in order to keep the location pristine. The natives are often very helpful in guiding a lost visitor back towards camp, if required.
Key Information | |
|
Artist:
|
|
The History of the Opal Canyons
The limestone in this area originally formed in the Carrid Sea and was pushed by the tectonic plate below until it came above sea-level and dried out under the tropical sun. Precipitation from Accra Forest leached down into the soil closer to the equator, and spread south into the limestone of the desert. This water brought minerals with it, which settled in pockets within the limestone and eventually solidified into chunks of opal. Some of these chunks are very large, with the biggest being several feet in length, and foot-long chunks being common.
Meanwhile, excess water from Cranny River flowed towards the Carrid Sea, slowly cutting into the limestone as it went and leaving many opals half-revealed. The result is a deep, still cavern studded with rainbow-hued gems. In the current day these poke out of the canyon walls, and many catch the sunlight as it filters down from the open sky above. These gems are the final touch that make this location such a treasure.
Sand from the desert was blown down into the canyon. It coats most of the base of the canyon in the current day.
The canyons also have a water supply. The river that originally cut the canyon is now split into multiple smaller rivers which each find their way into parts of the maze the canyon has become, and more water seeps up from the water table below. The sand filters out the chalky deposits carried in the water, and the resulting pools are crystal clear and catch the blue of the desert sky above, creating a stunning effect.
The canyons have also become home to the local neolithics, who make use of the shelter of the overall canyon and limestone caves, and the water supply.