Kings Canyon & Uluru

We spent a couple nights in Kings Canyon and really enjoyed our time there. We did the River Bed walk the first day - it takes you a little way along the base of the canyon with views of the walls at the end, it was quite a nice walk but i was left a little disappointed as i had heard it was an amazing place and the highlight of many peoples trips. We thought maybe the Rim walk was the secret so we did that the next day and it was amazing…bit hard in the beginning but it was worth every step. The landscape was beautiful with lots of domes and great views of the cliff faces…the photos in no way do it justice at all…. I can now see why people rate this place highly.

Spinifex Pigeon – a lot of them around.

Just a Wattle tree…i just love the blue sky that day..

                        

Rim Walk.

                        

Rim walk.

Lush gardens near the end of the canyon.

Near the end of walk.

The boys always set up their “offices” where ever we go.

Kings Canyon had entertainment every night. They had a kids spot where they all got to get up and play instruments and sing for everyone. Surprisingly the boys all loved it and went back the next night to do it all over again.

 

Next on to Uluru…..another place where photos do no justice at all….It’s an amazing sight when you first see it from a distance….and then to drive up close it kind of blew me away. I think the boys felt the same way going by the comments coming from the back of the car as we were driving up.

Uluru and Olgas in the distance.

                        

                               Love the look of all the red sand!                              Animal tracks in sand.

 

 

Waiting for the traffic to clear after a sunset viewing.

                          

The boys doing the climb,I had a hard time watching them as it looked so dangerous to me.

Waiting for them to come back.

Andy looking a little tired while we rested during a little walk through the Olga’s. Didn’t see a whole lot of them but still impressive.

We have taken to doing charades at night time to pass the time (we are usually in our camper by 7 to escape the mice) and it has been a lot of fun – Ethan is a very keen participant which makes it very interesting at times.

 I have heard the area is breaking a few records in regards to night time temp and i can tell you it has been freezing cold at night. I think we all are  fair weather campers because we have been sleeping in waiting for the day to warm up slightly before we stick our heads out the camper…it doesn't take long and the sunny day soon arrives- we have had great weather this whole trip without one drop of rain falling. 

Everyone is doing well and looking forward to getting home soon..see you soon xxx

Alice Springs and MacDonnell Ranges

We had a quiet few days in Alice Springs. Simon flew home to Adelaide for a couple nights so he could go to his Uncles funeral and the kids and I mainly stayed at the caravan park and entertained ourselves. We did go to the Royal Flying Doctors Centre which was very interesting. It was very exciting for us when Kez dropped in for a cuppa to see how we were doing. We caught up the next day as well once Simon was back, and it was great to see her and hear how she is settling in.

 

                         

Royal Flying Doctors Centre.

We went to the East MacDonnell Ranges and set up camp for a couple nights at Trephina Gorge. It had a great walk there that lead you around the rim then down into the gorge. It still has water in it at the moment so we walked back to the camp ground through the gorge in ankle deep water which was lovely. Our camp was  invaded by mice when the sun began to set and we were kept awake the first night with the sound of them running all over our camper. We now have a few socks filling holes in our camper that we thought they might be able to come in…so far so good:)

                         

 Trephina Gorge

 Bush bath at Trephina.

In the West MacDonnell Ranges we camped at Ormiston Gorge and then did day trips to the other sights along the range.  Ormiston was great….they put on slide show nights and campfire talks with the Rangers there so we  learnt a lot about all the animals and plants in the area. At night time the Dingos howled and the owls hooted and we all loved listening out for them as we were going to sleep.             

                         

Ormiston Gorge

                                                    

Ghost gums at Ormiston. 

                        

Ormiston

       I love all the River Red Gums.          

    

                         

                                    Mount Sonder at sunrise                                  Looking the other way.

Ellery Creek Big Hole

Simpsons Gap

Ochre Pits

                          

Serpentine Gorge

 We planned on going to Palm Valley which we heard was lovely (thanks Cathy). We thought we would leave our camper at a nearby campground and go in with just the car as it’s not the easiest road to take – we already had to repair one weld on the trailer so we didn’t want to get stuck in there. Anyway the campground was pretty scary and we didn’t want to leave it on the side of the road for a few hours so we sadly moved on down the Mereenie Loop where our roof rack became loose and snapped it’s attachments …anyway a quick stop to move everything onto the trailer until it can be fixed and we were back on the road.

Moving the roof rack…

We are in Kings Canyon at the moment enjoying the walks and the slightly warmer weather…hopefully update soon. xxxx

Katherine Gorge, Mataranka & Tennant Creek.

We have made our way through Katherine. We didn’t do so much in the town, just a bit of shopping, and then on to Katherine Gorge National Park, or Nitmiluk as they like you to call it.  The camp ground was once again lovely, with a great swimming pool so we could do some more swimming once again. It had a singer/guitarist in the evening which we enjoyed sitting and listening to. The camp ground had lots of Fruit Bats or Flying Foxes (not sure what they were) hanging in all the trees and it was quite the sight to see them all flying around at dusk. It also had friendly Wallabies and very brave kangaroos –we were woken in the middle of the night to a lot of banging in our trailer. A kangaroo had grabbed our cereal box (that I had forgot to put away) so Simon went out to deal with it …..the funniest thing I have seen in a long time was a limping Simon chasing the kangaroo that somehow got the box stuck on it’s head and was hopping around our camper. It all ended well with both parties safe and well. 

 

Edith Falls

Swimming pool at camp ground.

Fruit bats or Flying Foxes???

Friendly Wallabies

The walks were very challenging in the gorge so we only did one of the smaller ones. It was still great but we didn’t see the real gorge part of it.

                           

 

Next we went to Mataranka and the Thermal Pool there. A short walk from there is the Roper River where we saw only our second wild Crocodile off in the distance.

  Crocodile in Roper River

This is the house they used in the book/movie We of the Never Never. Haven’t read it but it’s on my ‘to do’ list.

Next on to Tennant Creek where we did a Mining tour at Battery Hill and learnt all about gold mining in the area – from the early days up till now. The gold here is found in small grains in Ironstone.You have to crush the stone down very fine then extract the gold dust from that…a lot of hard work in the early days.

 

Battery Hill

Just an hour down from Tennant Creek is the Devils Marbles. This was a fun place to go, we camped in the camping ground there and had a lot of fun climbing all the huge boulders.

The nights are getting cooler now with everyone wearing layers to bed to keep warm. The days are still nice and sunny but getting cooler as well…..getting us ready for Adelaide:)

A cool sight we saw along the road on the way to Alice Springs.

We are spending 4 nights in Alice Springs then heading to the MacDonnell Ranges and on to Ayers Rock. xxx