NT - Alice Springs

Alice Springs is a very modern city in the heart of Central Australia and sits between the East and West Macdonnell ranges. We enjoyed our stay here and one of my favourite pastimes was visiting the art galleries full of wonderful Aboriginal paintings. The main mall in town, Todd Mall, has many galleries and you will often see Aboriginals sitting on the grass selling their own art work.
The city has fantastic bike tracks and the roads are on a grid pattern so it is easy to find your way around.
We spent a day at the Desert Park which is a huge park on the outskirts of town and has a self guided audio walking tour through the various desert habitats: desert rivers, sand country and woodland. They have the type of animals, plants and birds that live in each of these areas. During the day there are presentations about finding water in creek beds, Aboriginal tools and artifacts and the most amazing show of free - flying birds of prey coming in to feed. It was a very educational day and we would highly recommend the Park to anybody coming to Alice.
I spent an afternoon at the Araluen Cultural Precinct where they were having an art exhibition of Aboriginal artists from the surrounding areas. Some of the paintings were stunning and so were the price tags. I wonder how much the artists get for their work?
We spent two evenings at Aboriginal concerts. One was children singing, dancing and playing their instruments and the second was bush bands from as far away as Darwin. It was wonderful sitting amongst them gaining more of an appreciation for their music.
We spent a month in and around Alice Springs and love the area a great deal. There is so much to see, so much history and we furthered our appreciation of how the Aboriginals had lived so well in this harsh environment for centuries.

NT-West Macdonnell Ranges

Another glorious sight seeing adventure was awaiting us west of Alice Springs in the West Macdonnell Ranges.
We camped at Glen Helen Gorge with our caravan and used that as our base to visit the many gorges and watering holes in the area.
Only a few kilometres out of Alice is Stanley Chasm. This is a magnificent gorge which when you visit it around noon you get the sun streaming down both sides and lighting up the red cliffs. There were many of our favourite birds, the rainbow bee eater flying around. These birds are so stunning in colour that I have spent hours trying to photograph them but can never seem to get that perfect shot.
Further west is the Ocre Pits. For generations the aborigine people used this place as a mine for the ocre which they use for painting and body decoration. Ocre is still collected from here today for special occasions only to be used for body painting.
Ormiston Gorge is another great walking opportunity. We climbed one of the cliffs and then walked into the bottom of the Gorge and cooled of in one of the watering holes. As usual in this area the view from the top was spectacular.
We then spent a day at Palm Valley and Hermannsberg. Hermannsberg was one of the early towns in Central Australia and was the home of the famous Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira. The original whitewashed buildings are still standing and their is now an art gallery, museum and tea house. There is still a large Aboriginal community living there today.
The final place we visited in our four days in this area was Redbank Gorge. They said that it is a 20 minute walk from the car park to the entrance of the gorge but after 20 minutes we had barely reached half way. For the first part, the path was well defined but we lost the path and ended up walking over and around boulders as we made our own way to the head of the gorge. It was a hard slog but so worth while. The large watering hole opens in to a series of caverns with cathedral like walls. The water is freezing and we were so glad that we had brought our blow up mattresses. Unfortunately Mikes’ sprung a leak not far into our paddle and he had to swim in the “ice water”. The sides of the walls have been worn smooth over the centuries from the flood waters. As you swim along there areas where you cannot see the sky and it feels rather eerie.

NT - Watarrka National Park ( Kings Canyon)

Watarrka National Park is 300 klms north east of Uluru and is best known for Kings Canyon. This impressive canyon soars 270 metres from the base of the gorge and has three main walking tracks. The first day we did the short 2 klm Kings Creek walk with a park ranger so we learnt a lot about the history, plants and animals of the area.
The second day we tackled the rim walk which starts off with a steep climb to the top of the canyon ( I was ready to go home half way up). Three hours later after we had completed the 7 klm walk and I was really glad I had hung in there. The walk was spectacular. At times you are standing on the edge of this massive canyon looking down into the valley below. At these spots, my knees felt rather weak and I got that weird feeling in my stomach when looking down from this height is almost too much for comfort.
The camping area is positioned facing this mountain range. At sunset we grabbed a wine, our chairs and camera, and watched the sun setting on to these stunning red mountains. After dark the dingoes start prowling around the camp area scrounging for food. You don’t leave any shoes outside or else the dingoes will take them. I wonder what they do with them?
On route to this area we saw a group of about twelve wild camels. It was exciting seeing them but they are apparently a problem creating havoc with the native shrubs and trees.

NT-Kata Tjuta ( The Olgas)

About 50klms west of Uluru is another unique rock mass, Kata Tjuta. This group is made up of 36 weathered rock domes which are estimated to be about 500 million years old. These domes are mixtures of gravel, pebbles and boulders cemented together by sand and mud called conglomerates. Apparently, Aboriginal people have lived in the area for at least 25,000 years. When you view the harshness of the land you really appreciate the Aborigines and their survival skills.
One morning we drove out to Kata Tjuta and spent three hours walking the “Valley of the Winds’ trail which is the hardest walk we have done to date. It was up and down some of the domes, through some valleys and I think we did more walking up than we did walking down. The temperature got up to the mid 30’s so by the time we had finished we were both beet red.
One afternoon we went on a helicopter ride over Uluru and Kata Tjuta. A storm was rolling in so we saw both rock structures with cloud around them which gives them a different perspective than all the sunny photos that you normally see. They are both majestic from the air.
Later that night the storm hit. We had red dust everywhere in our caravan and even though I have wiped everything several times there still seems to be a fine layer of dust arriving as quickly as I wiped up.
Our visit to the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park has been a wonderful experience, Both of these places have a certain magic about them which makes you want to return.

NT - Uluru

All the pictures that you see of this incredible Australian icon do not do its size and rock structure justice.
As you are drive or walk around the base the colours of the rock are constantly changing depending on where the sun is striking it.
Uluru is one of the great natural wonders of the world. This sandstone monolith stands 348 metres above ground and has a much larger mass hidden beneath the surface. Uluru is also considered by many to be the spiritual heart of Australia.
On our second day, we drove out to the rock at about 6:30a.m, and watched the sun move onto, and then up the rock. It is as if you are watching the rock wake up, the colour goes from brown to brilliant red in a matter of minutes and is spell binding.
We then decided to walk around the base. It is a 9.4klm walk and took us about three hours. There are times when you are walking beside the rock and other times, because of sacred aboriginal sites you are walking quite a distance away from it. There are many caves with aboriginal drawings, water holes and as it had rained recently, there was still a little bit of water running off the rock.
We enjoyed being out by the rock so we came back every day we were there to either do short walks, watch the sunset or just sit beside it. I felt like the rock was a friend and I couldn’t wait to get back out to be beside it. The drive from the camp area out to the rock is about 21 klms so you always get a good view each time you drive out there and back.
The Aboriginals ask they that you do not climb the rock as it is a sacred site and while you are in this amazing part of Australia you certainly want to respect the wishes of this incredible race of people.
I spent about an hour at the Cultural Centre watching three aboriginal ladies painting which was fascinating. I could have sat and watched them all day. One of the women has an exhibition coming up in Melbourne so she was busy finishing off a couple of her latest works.
Uluru is one of those special places that touches your heart.

NT - East Macdonnell Ranges

We spent three days in the East Macdonnell ranges and were fascinated with the many different geological formations. We were driving around spellbound, appreciating the upheaval that had occurred in the earths crust eons ago to create these mountain ranges.

We drove on a 4 Wheel drive track to N’Dhala Gorge Nature Park which has over 6,000 aboriginal carvings. This park is unique in the fact that much of the art is not sign posted so when you find something yourself it is very exciting. It is hard to believe that some of the carvings are as much as 10,000 years old. While walking these mountain tracks Mike and I have seen many beautiful birds, try to photograph and then identify them in our now much used bird book. Many of them are very small and so colourful.

Another afternoon was spent at Trephina Gorge which has spectacular walking and hiking trails along the top of the Quartzite cliffs. After you are totally exhausted from walking up and down the cliff tops, you descend into the dry sandy river bed which you then have to walk along to get back to the car park. Along the way there are huge river red gums which give you shade from time to time. Needless to say, this was another 35 degree day so we were looking forward to getting back to the caravan and cooling off. (A beer is always very welcoming at the end of these hot energetic days).

Further into the ranges we drove to Artlunga Historical Reserve which was the site of an old gold mining town. We climbed down into an abandoned gold mine which makes you appreciate how hard these men worked. The gold from this area was attached to the quartz deposits so they had to grind the quartz down first and then extract the gold.

Qld - South from Mt Isa

We had a wonderful trip south from Mt Isa with varying landscapes and many places of interest along the way.
One of the most fascinating was Devils Marbles. Out of the blue, these huge granite boulders appear and look as though they have been strategically placed there by super human strength. The balance of some of them is remarkable.
We walked along the many trails around the rocks knowing that for thousands of years this has been a very special area for the Aborigines. You can definitely feel that there is something magical about the area.
We camped about 20klms south of here and drove back the next night to watch the sunset from these rocks. Magical!

Further south we travelled to Gemtree, which is a camping area about the 140 klms NE of Alice Springs. We stayed here for two nights and had a delightful time. One of the major attractions of Gemtree is the Tag- a- long garnet fossicking tours. We spent six hours out in the heat with the flies and the wind to find some garnets. My fingers were nearly rubbed raw, I broke two finger nails, my hair was tinged red from the dust, our backs were aching from the pick and shoveling and of course that good old red dust covered our clothes and was in our shoes and socks. How much are these garnets worth? We had loads of fun, lots of laughter and we’ll eventually have some jewelry made so its’ all good.

Gemtree has a golf course which we perused but decided not to play. We thought that our golf balls and clubs would never be the same again.