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

Kakadu and Fenton Air Base

After Darwin we made our way to Kakadu.

 

 

The seasons of Kakadu.

We were excited to be able to see it’s wetlands and the many birds we have heard it has at this time of year. Unfortunately their main wetlands – Yellow Water, isn’t open to people yet but we were able to see the smaller Mamukala Wetlands which was quite nice- not many birds but still nice.

Mamukala Wetlands

                           

We were still able to do a few walks, one of which took us along beautiful path through bushland and  big rock faces with Aboriginal Art on them. It then took us up to a rocky lookout over the Nadab floodplain…the view was amazing.

Rock Art

Nadab Floodplains

                           

                                           Nadab Floodplains 

We stayed in Kakadu for two nights at one of their camp spots along a small billabong…the mozzies were the size of elephants and in plague proportions. They came in at about 4 in the arvo and stayed till about 9 in the morning…never seen anything like it. Needless to say we spent a lot of time in the camper playing cards!

There is a lot of “burning off” going on at the moment so every 5 minutes we seem to be passing another fire…some right on the road side and burning pretty well. Some were a little bit to close for my liking…especially with jerry cans of petrol on our car!

 

Simons Dad Roger, had mentioned Fenton Airstrip to Simon a couple weeks ago so after Kakadu we searched and found Fenton Airstrip and Base Camp. Fenton is where Simons Grandfather – Claude Johnson ,was based in WWII. He was there when it came under heavy Japanese bombing in Mid-1943.

The drive into the Base Camp was quite the adventure with the road looking like it hadn’t had any work done on it since it was abandoned after the war. Only foundations are left from all the buildings and it was good that the fires had just gone through so we could see all the little metal bits and pieces left behind too.

Just being there and seeing the layout of the camp was very interesting…. you could almost imagine what it would have been like with hundreds of soldiers rushing around.

 

                        

                        

                        

The Airstrip was a few Kilometres away and bigger than i thought…apparently it was a heavy bomber airfield so the planes were bigger than most.

 

 

                        

Mitch driving the Airstrip.

We were so glad we got to see this place and it made it so much more real for the boys knowing that their Great Grandfather served there.

I took so many photos Dad J, including all the signs with info on them….will show more when we get home..

Thankyou again for your comments…absolutely love hearing from home…and getting excited to see you soon xxx