12 July - Finke Gorge National Park

12 July 2016 – 178 579

Finke Gorge National Park

Peaceful start to the morning.  After breakfast we phoned an autoelectrician in Alice Springs and booked the van in for Thursday morning to be repaired.  After paying for another nights accommodation we headed out to Finke Gorge National Park for the day.
https://nt.gov.au/leisure/parks-reserves/find-a-park-to-visit/finke-gorge-national-park
The road is high clearance 4WD only – while we did not need to engage 4WD we definitely needed the high clearance and to take it very slowly.  The 16km took 90 minutes each way.  We also saw evidence of cars that had not “cleared” the rocks. 

The first walk we did was the Mpaara walk which goes up through a gully and comes out on top to an unexpectedly amazing view, while telling a dreamtime story of a boy that wanders off in the wilderness.  This took about two and a quarter hours to cover 6.5km and was a challenging walk.  We all voted this the best walk so far of the trip. 

After lunch we headed into Palm Valley.  We drove to about 1.5km before Palm Valley and left the car here as the road became very very rocky and it was just as quick to walk.  We did the Mpulungkinya walk which took as along the river bed through Palm Valley with the amazingly tall Cabbage Palms and beautiful cycads.  This walk (including the walk to and from where we parked the car) was 7.85km and took two and half hours.  There was an area of rock that looked almost like bark on a tree in both texture and colour, and directly beside was other rock that looked a lot like concrete.  The walls of the gorge were predominantly red-brown, however the sand in the river bed was light grey in colour.  Hayden found some cool tracks of a tiny two legged marsupial, a snake and a two legged marsupial with a tail in the sand. We got back to the van about 5:30pm, having left at 9:00am, and were treated to a beautiful sunset. Mum

11 July - Kings Canyon Rim Walk and Mereenie Loop

11 July 2016 – 178 362

Kings Canyon Rim Walk and Mereenie Loop

This morning we packed up, it was freezing – it had warmed up to 4 degrees by 8am.  We then headed back to Watarrka National Park to do the Canyon Rim Walk.
https://nt.gov.au/leisure/parks-reserves/find-a-park-to-visit/watarrka-national-park This was amazing…… The beginning of the walk is a steep climb up to the top of the canyon walls, it looks very steep but due to the rock being sedimentary it forms good flat steps for secure walking.  Once at the top the view was great as we had beautiful clear weather.  The walk continued amongst the domes on the top of the canyon walls, these are said to represent young men in the dreamtime legends.  The lookout points gave grand vista views.  In some places the canyon walls are sheer vertical faces, in other places there are large overhangs where the deeper, softer sandstone has eroded leaving the upper harder layers unsupported.  We saw some interesting rock formations – there are areas where the sediment layers do not run parallel to each other, there were also some great examples of ripple stones, formed at the edge of lakes.  The Garden of Eden was a very steep descent but was such a contrast to the top of the rim with its waterhole and luxuriant plant life.  I am glad I didn’t have to build the steps in and out of this.  This was a truly amazing walk, although there was not a single section of even ground.



To get to Hermannsburg we drove the Mereenie Loop.  This travels through aboriginal land and requires a permit ($5.50).
https://www.discovercentralaustralia.com/visitor-information/driving-permits
It is beautiful and constantly changing country with a dirt road, that is quite corrugated and has some big dips in places.  Some small parts have bitumen but this is quite potholed and has big bumps to come on and off.  One particularly big dip which has a standard road sign advising you to slow down, but closer to it from each direction there is also a forty-gallon drum which says “LIFT UM FOOT”.  We saw many brumbies, which looked in terrific condition. We stopped and checked the van and vehicle a number of times due to the roughness of the road, and this being our first time with the van in this type of conditions.  The first 150km were fine, but when we arrived at Hermannsburg we found a van leg had vibrated down and we had lost one foot, the cable adapter between the van and vehicle must have vibrated off then we had lost the plug from the van end along with the Anderson plug.  We will need to arrange an autoelectrian. On the side of the road there were monster sized piles of manure, which were presumably camel, some of these would have come more than half way up my shin in height and were just as wide.  

Approaching road train

The dust cloud after - why it is always best to pull over and stop when a road train
passes you on the dirt!

We are camping the night at Hermannsburg Heritage Precinct which is an old Lutheran mission.  There are only a very small number of vans here.  Hayden had a quick fire in the fireplace after dinner.  http://hermannsburg.com.au/
Mum

10 July - Kathleen Springs and Kings Canyon Creek

10 July 2016 – 178 124

Kathleen Springs and Kings Canyon Creek

It rained a large part of the night and on waking it did not appear that we were camped in the desert, but rather a wetland.  Once the rain eased we packed up and headed towards Watarrka National Park (Kings Canyon). 
https://nt.gov.au/leisure/parks-reserves/find-a-park-to-visit/watarrka-national-park 

We stopped to do the Kathleen Springs Walk (1.5 hours, 2.6km), this area is a permanent water hole at the end of a gorge.  The aboriginals used to hunt the animals as they left the end of the gorge and then more recently it was used as a natural mustering point for cattle.  The walls are quite high and steep so no avenue of escape is available if the gorge opening is blocked.  From here we continued on to Kings Canyon Resort, where we are camping the night.  https://www.kingscanyonresort.com.au/
This afternoon we did the Kings Creek Walk (1 hour, 2km).  This walks along the base of the canyon where the creek flows, there are beautiful ghost gums, large chunks of rock that have fallen in from the canyon walls which clearly show the sedimentary nature of the rock.  Nice hot showers tonight to clean off all the dust from yesterday’s dust storm.  Sunset on the canyon walls was beautiful although only briefly lit up again due to cloud.  The resort sets up a bar at the sunset viewing area – you can get a Coke for only $5! or a beer for $10.50.  Mum

The climb to the rim of Kings Canyon

9 July Astro Hub

9 July 2016 – 178 033

Astro Hub

Today was a lazy day, with Hayden choosing most of the activities.  We started with a long lie in, followed by face massages for Drew and Hayden. Next up we headed over to the Astro Hub which to Hayden’s great disappointment was closed.  As a result we changed our plans and all did the Garden Walks at Sails in the Desert and Desert Gardens Motels. 
https://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/experiences/supplier/voyages-free-activities  

Town Square was our next destination, where Hayden did some cool puzzles set up by the Astronomers, as well as using the Solar Telescope.  He found out that the Astro Hub would be open from 2 to 3 this afternoon.  Lunch at the van, which was blowing wildly in a dust storm.  Packing up the van in a howling wind with dust and sand going everywhere was interesting to say the least.  All done though and over at the Astro Hub at 2pm.  Hayden spent the next hour working on a marble rollercoaster that was not working and adjusting it towards full operation.  He certainly seemed to be having fun. Off to Curtin Springs for the night and then on to Kings Canyon in the morning.

Mum

8 July - Camel Farm and Bush Yarns

8 July 2016 – 178 019

Camel Farm, Bush Yarns and School Work

Today was again a school day for Hayden, however we took a break in the middle of the day to do some activities.  We headed to the Yulara town square to listen to “Leroy” talk about the men’s weapons of the Central Desert Region and why and how each is used.  He also explained why items such as the returning boomerang are not used locally – these are used by coastal peoples for hunting water birds and are made of light wood.  The boomerangs used in the Central Desert are made of hard, heavy mulga for breaking the legs of emu or kangaroo; if it was to return it would injure the thrower, so these are not designed to return. https://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/experiences/detail/free-daily-activities

After this, we headed to the camel farm – we saw lots of camels saddled up, some in a train, and watched them sit down.  This looks like it would be very jerky.  I was surprised by how much variation in colour there was between animals and how continuous the colour range was with each shade represented. https://www.ulurucameltours.com.au/

I caught up on my journal, photo sorting and blog posting!! Ta Da! 

This evening we went to a different lookout to watch the sun set on Uluru – again it was beautiful but completely different – going from purple to velvety brown, the sun was behind some low cloud so we didn’t get the burst of orange we have had on other nights.  It has been quite amazing how much colour variation there is in the rock under different light and weather conditions.

Week 3 from Hayden

Week 3 from Hayden (10 yo boy)

02/07/16
Today I woke up at 7am again.  We drove to Curtin Springs and set up camp.  We saw Mt Conner/Foolaru.  It looks like Uluru

03/07/16
Today we drove to Yulara and saw Uluru (I nicknamed it the Big Fat Rock Mum Won't Let Me Take Home).  We also went to a performance called "The Crow, The Cockatoo, and The Eagle".  It was funny!

04/07/16
Today we walked around Uluru, all 10.6km of it!  We also went to the Cultural Centre, there was a cool documentary playing.

05/07/16
Today we went to Kata Tjuta and watched the sun rise over it.  Then we walked the Valley of the Winds (they don't call it that for nothing) and Walpa Gorge.  Then we went to sunset, it was awesome.

06/07/16
We got up at 7:00am and went and ran around Uluru (10.6km).  It was a long run, it took me 1:00:37. Then we left the National Park and said "bye" to Uluru and Kata Tjuta.

07/07/16
Today I did a school day and then we did sunset, it didn't even light up anything.

08/07/16
Today I did another school day.  Then we went to a talk on the tools of the aboriginals of that area.  Then we went to a camel farm and watched the camels.  Then we went to an astronomy talk about supermassive black holes.  After that I tried to fix a marble track.  It was hard, I almost did it!  Then we went to another lookout to watch sunset.

7 July - Astro Hub and Blackholes

7 July 2016 – 178 015

School Day and Astro Hub

Sleep in this morning after our very busy last few days. Washing, car cleaning, school work this morning.  This afternoon we headed to the Astro Hub where we learnt about supermassive black holes from a Canadian Astonomer working with CAASTRO at the Narrabri radar telescope.
 https://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/events/detail/astronomer-in-residence-program  
http://caastro.org/
She also showed us a website where normal individuals can look at some of the data being generated and match up radio wave images and infra-red optical images to identify the locations of black holes.  The radio wave images show the rays coming out from the centre of the black hole. http://radio.galaxyzoo.org

This is really cool!! After dinner we headed up to one of the lookouts within Yulara campground to watch the sunset on Uluru.

Mum

07/07/2016. Uluru school day.

Today was a Hayden school day, so whilst he studied hard Tracy did the washing and I cleaned the car and topped up the water tanks etc. We had our main meal for lunch as it was so cold. I cooked up a load of rissoles, and snags to be eaten later. Today was heavily clouded and we had a small amount of rain just after lunch. At 2:30pm we headed over to the Astro hub and looked around and then listened to an astronomer talk about her work studying supermassive black holes. Hayden had the opportunity to use the website the presenter used, http://radio.galaxyzoo.org, and he enjoyed the site and the conversation with the presenter. The sun came out around 4pm for a couple of hours, however the sun felt very weak today. On dusk we walked up to the top of the nearest lookout, however the view wasn’t that great, and the strain of the last few days activities took their toll on us and our relationships, so we came back home and prepared for bed.

06/07/2016. Uluru running team.

Finally, a small sleep in! Well we tried but we were up by 7am, even though it is still dark here. We had a freshly cooked breakfast and were able to have a shower and clean the van out completely. We drove out to Uluru around 11am, and as a family we ran around the 10km loop of Uluru. I even ran although I am still recovering from my ankle injury, but I was not going to miss the run, as I may not have the opportunity to do it ever again. Hayden had a small issue at the start as the wind ripped through near the rock and made his eyes water so badly, he had to stop. Hayden and Tracy did the run well, however I had a little trouble with breathing at the end when we were in the shadow of Uluru, as it was so cold! We got some strange looks by some of the walkers, but I am glad we did the run. We then went to the culture centre and watched a movie on the handover of Uluru back to the locals and we watched a 45 minutes talk by a ranger on local animals. We came back to the van to find our Astro tour cancelled due to… cloud cover. Seems to be the story of our stay.

6 July - Uluru Again

6 July 2016 – 177 956

Uluru Again

This morning we all had a sleep in and leisurely breakfast, showers etc.  Caught up on my journal writing, just need to catch up on photo downloading and blog posting.  Mid-morning we headed out to Uluru again, this time to run a lap around the base.  It was 9.75km which took 1:06:29 with the most amazing view!!  Fantastic to actually not be cold for a while.

After lunch the Cultural Centre was our next stop – we watched a video on Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park produced by the Anangu people.
https://parksaustralia.gov.au/uluru/do/cultural-centre/  This was followed by a talk presented by one of the Rangers on the management of the park; endangered, threatened or locally extinct animals, as well as the Mala reintroduction program. Mala are extinct in the wild on mainland Australia, but have been reintroduced to Uluru in a predator free enclosure (58Ha).  The Mala have gone from an original release population of 24 in 2005, to 250 ten years on. Home again for showers and dinner – Hayden played footy with a group of boys while I was cooking and appeared to have a great time.  Tried to book in for a Dot painting class, but booked out for the next four days.  Unfortunately Drew and Hayden’s Astro Tour for this evening was cancelled due to weather – too much cloud to see the stars.

Mum

05/07/2016. Olgas, its hiking time.

Up at 5:30am once again and straight to the park and the 50 km drive to the Olgas sunrise lookout. Again we had clouds but the scene was still awesome. We then drove around to the main carpark and walked both walking trails. These hikes were much more difficult than Uluru, and Hayden enjoyed these far more due to the level of difficulty. The Olgas are completely different to Uluru. Uluru is one piece of sandstone and the Olgas are conglomerate rock. Saying that they are still amazing and huge! We tracked the walks today and we totalled around 17 km, and the accent/decent was around 850m, so a lot tougher day. The valley of winds did live up to its name today. We then drove to the sunset lookout and setup the camera. Again it clouded over and the view was nice, however just as the sun was on the horizon the cloud parted and we had light on the Olgas. The light lasted for no more than 5 minutes, however they made the entire evening worth the effort. Such vivid colours. We then drove the 50 km back in the dark to the van, trying to leave the park before it closed! An additional comment is the temperatures through the day are averaging 7 to 17 degrees Celsius, and the winds are blowing constantly, with gusting up to 30 plus knots. This is taking its toll on us as we are wearing all our cold weather gear, but we are still cold!