20 July - School Day

20 July 2016 – 179 379

School Day

This morning I started with a swim in the lap pool.  Today has primarily been a school work day, with odd jobs by Drew and I.   I gave both the boys haircuts this morning.   After school work was done for the day, Hayden and I headed to the waterslide.  It is 31m long and goes round, allowing us to get up to a decent speed. We had lots of fun!!  Hayden also spent quite a while on the jumping pillow!  It is a great park for kids and Hayden has got to have lots of kid time.

19 July - Maintenance Day

19 July 2016 – 179 297

Maintenance Day

Today started with a shower, what a lovely way to start the day; followed by three loads of washing.  After packing up we headed to Simpson’s Gap. https://nt.gov.au/leisure/parks-reserves/find-a-park-to-visit/simpsons-gap The Rangers Station here had all the information we might want of the West MacDonnell Ranges and other National Parks near Alice Springs, that the visitor centre in Alice Springs seemed unable to tell us where to source.  This again was a beautiful spot.  We headed into Alice Springs to have a few school days for Hayden.  Unfortunately, we could not get in at G’Day Mate Caravan Park, where we had previously stayed.  We are staying at the Big 4 MacDonnell Range Holiday Park – it has lots of stuff for kids.  https://www.big4.com.au/caravan-parks/nt/alice-springs-surrounds/macdonnell-range-holiday-park We have given the car and van a rearrange while Hayden has been doing school work.  After dinner we had a swim in the van park’s pool – 26 degrees, much more comfortable than the waterholes in this part of Australia.

Mum

18 July - West MacDonnell Ranges – Serpentine Gorge, Ellery Creek Big Hole and Standley Chasm

18 July 2016 – 179 210

West MacDonnell Ranges – Serpentine Gorge, Ellery Creek Big Hole and Standley Chasm

This morning we went to Serpentine Gorge and did a short walk to a waterhole and lookout (2.7km, 204m ascent, in an hour).  
http://traveloutbackaustralia.com/serpentine-gorge-west-macdonnell-ranges.html/
We returned to Ellery Creek Big Hole where Hayden and I did the Dolomite Walk; we saw tiny spiders’ webs in the spinifex, crickets, and some new flowers that we haven’t seen anywhere else.  Apparently this area has very high biodiversity because on one side of the gully is the red rock common to the area and the other side of the gully is dolomite; as a result the soil produced is richer in nutrients than most local areas.  This walk was 2.8km, and involved 179m of climbing.
https://nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/200036/ellery-creek-big-hole-fact-sheet-and-map.pdf

We packed up and headed to Standley Chasm, where we have camped the night.  We headed straight into Standley Chasm as the light only penetrates into this deep narrow chasm in the middle of the day.  This is impressive and the photos don’t do justice to just how narrow and deep this is – it would be amazing to see this with water flowing through. (2.4km, 50 minutes)
https://www.standleychasm.com.au/

The next walk went straight up, and I do mean straight up, to a lookout with an amazing view – Larapinta Hill Lookout – this had views in multiple directions.  This is part of section 4 of the Larapinta Trail, it looks like this would be a challenging section, very steep up and down.  Last up for the day was the Loop walk, which took us through a different type of country and again up to a lookout.  These two walks combined were 4.4km and took about an hour and a half, with 522m ascent.  Then we got to have showers, I feel so much nicer clean!

Mum

17 July - Ochre Pits and Ellery Creek Big Hole, West MacDonnell Ranges

17 July 2016 – 179 141

Ochre Pits and Ellery Creek Big Hole, West MacDonnell Ranges

This morning we packed up the van and headed East.  Our first stop was the Ochre Pits, these contained a wide range of colours and shades, from white through yellow, orange, red, brown and almost black.  It appears to be quite chalky in texture.  From here we did the Aranda Walk which

took us from the Ochre Pits to the Larapinta Trail.  This was 8.8km and took a bit over two and a half hours.  This was an enjoyable walk with a lovely mountain pass at the end, however it was not on the scale of beauty of the last two days' walks.  Hayden spotted a small reptile on the path on the way back which was happy to let us observe for a while. 
http://www.macdonnellranges.com/ochre-pits-visitors-information-guide.htm 
After lunch we moved on to Ellery Creek Big Hole where we have camped the night. https://nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/200036/ellery-creek-big-hole-fact-sheet-and-map.pdf
After setting up camp we went for a swim

(primarily to get clean), we went completely under water and scrubbed ourselves down – the water was freezing, although maybe slightly warmer than that at Ormiston Gorge yesterday.  Thankfully the air temperature today has been much warmer than the last few days and we quickly warmed up.  It is actually warm enough to consider a single short sleeved top, rather than five long sleeved tops at once which has been the norm for the last few days.  Time to relax this evening, ahh!

Mum

18/07/2016. Standley Chasm walks

We drove back to Serpentine Gorge for a short walk to the waterhole and the lookout. Both were nice, however I am glad they were only 2.5km, 50 min, 310m accent. We then drove back to the van and Tracy and Hayden completed the dolomite walk, which was a simple 3 km nature walk around the camp site. I packed up the van as much as I could during this time. We then moved to Standley Chasm. We were lucky as they let Hayden in for free, so with the walk and the overnight stay the cost was only $10 for the night. We completed the chasm, the lookout and the loop with lookout walks. The chasm lookout walk was very vertical, but a great little walk. Standley Chasm is a little run down, and the car park is the van park at night. The showers were very poor, but it was a shower and we did get a very little mount of hot water. There were only 2 vans and the Larapinta walkers, so it was a very quiet evening. 

17/07/2016. Swimming in the big hole.

Still freezing at dawn! We packed up the van and drove to the Ochre Pits. The approximately 100m of rainbow coloured cliffs were indeed a sight to see. I can see that the aboriginals would have loved the dust and how it became a very tradable commodity. We then did the Aranda walk, however apart from the stats, the walk was unremarkable for the region. 8km, 3h20min, 600m accent. We then drove to Ellery Creek Big Hole, and setup the van. We needed to have a good clean so we had a “swim”. When I say swim I mean that we did get in, and fully submerge our bodies, and rub ourselves down in all the important bits, however the stay was brief as the water was freezing. I had my head under the water approximately 5 seconds and I ended up with a brain freeze headache. The camp ground is all but empty tonight as all the locals have gone home at the end of the weekend.

16 July - West MacDonnell Ranges, Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) and Ormiston Pound

16 July 2016 - 178 982

West MacDonnell Ranges, Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) and Ormiston Pound

 Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) Conservation Reserve is the remains of a crater from a comet impact over a 100 million years ago – the comet was more than a kilometre in diameter.  Even after all this time it is an impressive site, the centre of the crater is 5km wide and has vertical walls that go 983m above sea level.  It was amazing to walk around inside and look up at the walls.  The lookout at Tylers Pass also gave a good view at the external walls.  https://nt.gov.au/leisure/parks-reserves/find-a-park-to-visit/tnorala-gosse-bluff-conservation-reserve

We decided to head to Glen Helen Gorge as we could not decide between Glen Helen Gorge or Ormiston Gorge for our next stop. 
https://www.glenhelenlodge.com.au/  
https://nt.gov.au/leisure/parks-reserves/find-a-park-to-visit/ormiston-gorge  

After dropping in at both it was clear that Ormiston Gorge would be our preference.  We enjoyed a picnic lunch and then decided to do the Ormiston Pound Walk this afternoon.  This starts by following the creek line and then heads through rolling hills.  The walk then climbs to a saddle and then down into a massive natural amphitheatre.  From here we hiked into Ormiston Gorge, this involved lots of fun rock hopping on a variety of rocks, from small boulders to large one metre cubes.  The rocks were an unusual pink to purple shade mixed with silver.  Near the end of the walk we needed to wade across the river.  This required removal of socks, boots and jeans, plus tucking up of top – and of course there was an audience.  The water was freezing cold for the first few steps, then numbness set in.  The first half of the crossing was fairly easy as the river bottom was sand, the second half was much harder as the base was a collection of rocks and getting my balance with numb feet was challenging.  Thankfully it did not take long to warm back up once dry and dressed.  We then continued following the creek line over sand and rocks back to the main swimming hole and the car park.  At the swimming hole we saw two White Breasted Herons, one in a tree and one wading in the shallow water.  All up this walk was 9.5km and took just under three and a half hours, with a total ascent of 770m.  Again, we all earnt our dinner.

16/07/2016. Showing our bums.

We left the van behind and drove around to Gosse Bluff. This is a new one for me as it is a comet impact crater. The impact was over 100 million years ago, and all that remains is the impact site, however this is truly massive. The information let us know that the original impact walls were 5km diameter and 1km high, all of which is gone now. We did the small walk and the lookout, however the rest of the park is a sacred site, so we could not access those areas. The freezing, driving wind didn’t help me wish to stay either. We then drove back to Glen Helen to have a look as this was meant to be a nice private camp site. I wasn’t too impressed, and there didn’t seems to be any walks to do, so we drove on to Ormiston Gorge. This would be a lovely little camp site if we needed to use it, and the kiosk staff were very nice and very helpful, as the Pound walk had water over it in one location. We decided to go ahead with the walk anyway and were treated to a wide range of environments and walking types. The walk was 9.5km and it took as 3 hours, 20 minutes with an ascent of 770 m. The walk had sandy, rock and boulder river beds. It had rolling hills, and a mountain climb. It had a massive amphitheatre plain, and it had a small water crossing that I did 3 crossings of to get the family across. The water was cold, very cold, with the skin first going numb, and then pins and needles. We had to take off boots, socks and jeans to make the crossing, with a small audience! They did however ensure Tracy did get some privacy. It was a good adventure walk, that I enjoyed.

15 July - Section 12 of the Larapinta Trail, Mt Sonder

15 July 2016 – 178 978

Section 12 of the Larapinta Trail, Mt Sonder

At 9:00am we started section 12 of the Larapinta Trail, which goes from Redbank Gorge to the summit of Mt Sonder. https://www.larapintatrail.com.au/  https://www.larapintatrail.com.au/section-12-larapinta-trail.html

Mt Sonder is the fourth highest mountain in the Northern Territory, at 1380m.  This walk has the most amazing views for the vast majority of the walk, as it travels along the ridgeline of the West MacDonnell Ranges.  I took photos, but they cannot possibly do justice to the view, as we could see through 170 degrees on each side a lot of the time.  This walk was 16.44km long.  This involved 875m ascent on the way up, which took us 3.5 hours. 

There was also 205m of ascent on the way down, which took about 3 hours.  So our total ascent for the day was over a kilometre!!  The sandwiches at the top never tasted so good!  We all signed the visitors book at the top, but did not hang around very long as it was very windy and cold at the top.  The views on the way down were just as good as those on the way up.  We all deserve a great dinner tonight.

Mum

Week 4 from Hayden

Week 4 from Hayden (10 yo boy)

09/07/16
Today we went to some gardens and did some garden walks, then we went back to the astronomy place and I kept working on the marble track, there was only one thing left to fix when we had to leave.  Then we drove to Curtin Springs.

10/07/16
Today we drove to Kathleen Springs and did the Kathleen Springs walk.  Then we drove to Kings Canyon Resort, we did the Kings Creek Walk.  The canyon looked massive!

11/07/16
Today we did the Kings Canyon Rim Walk.  The scenery was beautiful.  Then we drove to Hermannsburg, on the drive we saw a camel poo that  would have come to my knee! We broke our Anderson plug and caravan plug.

12/07/16
Today we went 4 wheel driving to Palm Valley and did two 2 hour walks, the first one was the best.  The view was awesome!

13/07/16
Today Mum went and looked at the old Lutheran mission where we are staying, while Dad and I packed up the van.  Then we drove to Alice Springs and did the washing.  Then we drove to the Tropic of Capricorn and set up.

14/07/16
Today we got up early to pack down and go to the auto electrician to get the Anderson plug and caravan plug.  We left the caravan there while we stocked up on groceries and parts.  Then we went to the auto electrician and got the caravan back and drove to Redbank Gorge for the night.

15/07/16
Today we went and did the Mt Sonder Walk - Section 12 of the Larapinta Trail.  When we got to the top we discovered it was not the highest peak.  On the way back we saw the highest mountain in the N.T..  The view was amazing.

15/07/2016. Mt Sonder, Larapinta stage 12.

After a slow freezing start once again, we started the 12^th stage of the Larapinta trail, which was the ascent and descent of Mt Sonder (the 4^th highest peak in NT at 1380m above sea level) from Redbank Gorge. We started at 9 a.m. and with a morning tea stop and many clothes change stops we reached the peak at around 12:30 p.m. On the way up we met a group of people whom had started the walk at 3 a.m. to sit and watch the sunrise. That is something that I wouldn’t recommend. The views the entire walk were breath taking as we followed the ridge line up most of the way, thus we had all but 360 degree views for the complete walk.  We all signed the visitors book at the summit and ate a well-earned and well sort after lunch. The walk down was almost warm, and the views were just as spectacular as the walk up. We arrived at the base around 4 p.m., having walked a total of 16.44 km, with a net altitude rise of approximately 700m, however we had walked a total of 1080m accent. A note on some of the other “hikers” was that men seem to make everything a race, and try and outdo each other all the time. In this case they all lost out as we were able to watch birds, find bugs and look at all the wild flowers on our walk, I believe they saw none of this. I also confirmed today that my 10 year old is a far more capable hiker than I am already, however I think his lack of weight helps him. We will see what he is like when he reaches puberty. 

14 July 2016 - Restock and Repair

14 July 2016 – 178 779

Restock and Repair

This morning is a new record of cold for us.  We had to be up early and packed up to take the van for repair.  By the time we were ready to leave it had warmed up to a degree – just one degree though!  I would like several more degrees. Apparently it got down to -2.2 degrees last night. Before we could drive we needed to get the ice off the windscreen, and then we were away. Today was about restocking on food, buying odd things we realised we hadn’t brought or could improve the way we do things.  I also bought some lovely aboriginal print patchwork fabrics.  Once we picked up the van from being repaired we headed to Redbank Gorge in the Tjoritja / West MacDonnell National Park.
https://nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/370414/redbank-gorge-fact-sheet-and-map.pdf
We are camping here for two nights.  It is still cold, but not as bad as last night, so far??

Mum

14/07/2016. Van repair day.

Up at 6am to pack up in the freezing dark. We had frost this morning, but the wind has died down. 1 degree is not nice when it is still windy. We drove back to Alice Springs and put the van in for repair. We did a massive shop of food and other things we had decided we require. At Woolies the deli lady told me that the temperature had been minus 2 degrees! After our giant shop, we picked up the van and drove to Tjoritja / West MacDonnell National Park and setup for the night. I drove out to the walk start and looked at the walk for tomorrow. It even has a rating of Difficult. We also reorganised the van for the new food.

12/7/2016. Today I believe I made hula girl spew.

Up at sunrise and decided to stay another night here. I made a phone call and have the van booked in at the auto electrician on Thursday in Alice Springs. Tracy and I think we have also formulated a way to greatly limit the dust issue in the van. We then drove out to Finke Gorge and Palm Valley, which are both are on the same dirt road, Finke about 2/3 of the way along the track. This road was sign posted as 4WD only with high clearance. I didn’t use 4WD, however the approximately 16 kms were done in around 1.5 hours, so slow driving. The road had it all, corrugations, holes, rocks water crossings and many different dirt surfaces. To keep Hayden interested for the walks I taught him a little bit of tracking, and we ended up finding the people we were following, however Hayden out did himself and he found a snake, lizard and a small marsupial track also. We completed the Finke Gorge walk before lunch. WOW, what a great walk, with the view at the top of the merge of 2 gorges being the mega highlight. Hayden and I agreed this was the best walk and view we have had thus far on the trip. We then drove to Palm Valley, well to within 1km. We choose to walk the last 1km, as the road was quite bad, and walking was only slightly slower than driving, and we still have more than 6 months left of the holiday and I need my car. The walk was nice but not as good as Finke. We then drove back to camp. Today I believe I made hula girl spew.

11/7/2016. The Rim and dust!

We were up early to pack up and drove to Kings Canyon. We completed the full famous rim walk. The walk was mountainous, and they were a lot of people doing the one way only walk. The views were splendid, however neither Hayden nor I felt much for this walk. I think it was one dimensional, and just had the rocks / gorge, so we were not treated to a variety of country side. After the walk we went back to the camp grounds to have a shower and purchase a pass to drive the Mereenie Loop road. 200km of rough dirt road! This was very hard driving and I learnt that 80km is the target speed, even though this was counter intuitive on the very rough parts. We did hit some dips at too fast a pace however, and we may have gotten a little air time.  On one part of the road a 44 gallon drum was painted with the sign, Lift Um Foot, this was a very well placed sign. Once we arrived at the Hermannsburg historic site campgrounds we found we had ripped the plug from the wiring loom of the caravan, and one of the caravan feet had wound down, and we had broken the plastic off. However, the worst part was the interior of the van was covered in dust. We had a big clean-up, and small fire and off to bed.

Dad

10/7/2016. To Kings Canyon

We had planned to leave early however it rain heavily in the early hours, so we did not get away until 9:00am exactly. We drove straight to Kings Canyon, and stopped in at Kathleen Springs for a 45 minutes’ walk up a gorge. We then went to the Kings Canyon Resort and booked in the unpowered sites. $50 per night, ouch. We drove the 10km back to Kings Canyon and did the creek walk which around took under an hour. Then back to the van and had a hot shower, and feed. We plan to pack up early and complete the rim walk tomorrow.

9/7/2016. Leaving Uluru

Today was planned as a straight out day off. However, at 11:30 we visited the Astro hub stall in the town square and Hayden did his geek thing. We also walked around the 2 “gardens” to look and read about different plants native to the area. We then had lunch at the van and packed up. By this time the wind was gale force and there was a LOT of sand in the air. We were glad to be moving on as the overflow is 100% sand. We again stopped in at the Astro hub hut and let Hayden enjoy 1.5 hours with the astronomers. We then drove to Curtin Springs free camp site and setup in the wind. The wind stopped at dusk, thank goodness.

Dad 

8/7/2016 - Silly non-campers

A second Hayden school day, with a break at lunch to visit the town centre to listen to an indigenous presenter talking about tools and weapons used locally. The presenter was the same person as we listened to in the museum, so we enjoyed his talk. We then visited the camel farm, however Hayden didn’t wish to have a ride and Tracy wasn’t going to ride alone, so we just had a look around.

Additional information about staying at Yulara (Ayers rock town):

If you wish to have a powered site or even a non-powered site, with a guaranteed close proximity to the camp kitchen, toilets etc, then book at least a week earlier at this time of year. Winter and school holidays is peak season. No amount of abuse to the park staff will make a sites appear. However, if you are like us the overflow is perfect for $20 per night and we only have to walk 30m more.
Yulara and region around it is desert. Do not bring your dogs or cats camping, do not wear your designer clothes, and do take photos of the incredible scenery, not just selfies.

Dad

13/07/2016. Cold, so cold

It is windy, up to 40 km per hour and cold with a maximum of 13 degrees. Today was the most I have felt the cold weather in my living memory. After we had caught up on our blog etc, and Tracy looked around the historic village, we packed up and drove to Alice Springs. All we did was a monster load of washing and put through the dryer and headed out to the Tropic of Capricorn free camp site for the night. Did I say it is cold?

13 July - Hermannsburg and Cold! Cold! Cold!

13 July 2016 – 178 622

Hermannsburg and Cold! Cold! Cold!

It is freezing and windy this morning – I did not know it could be this cold when the sun was out.  I spent a couple of hours looking around the Hermannsburg Historic Precinct. 
http://hermannsburg.com.au/
This was the first mission in Australia and was set up by the Lutheran Church in the 1870’s, there are a number of buildings remaining with some still in use as private residences.  They have a collection of Hermannsburg watercolours, dot paintings and beautiful Hermannsburg pottery.  These are gorgeous decorative pottery containers painted with scenes of nature with the lids created as figurines of something from the scene, usually a bird or animal.  https://hermannsburgpotters.com.au/
We drove into Alice Springs this afternoon and did a mountain of laundry.  This afternoon the temperature topped at 13 degrees with 40km/hour winds – it was freezing!! We are camped tonight at Tropic of Capricorn Rest Area.