Decision made ! This morning we set off into the West MacDonnell Ranges for a relatively short and relaxed drive to Glen Helen Gorge where we’ll stay the night.
No navigation problems this morning as we’ve now just about figured out where everything is in Alice Springs so straight to the fuel station to top up and then straight out on the Larapinta Drive.
Our first diversion off the road took us to Simpsons Gap, initially this seemed like “yet another gorge” but on the way back we spotted some of the rare Black Footed Rock Wallabies in the rocks on the other side of the gorge to us. We watched them for a while before setting off again.
We then turned onto Namatjira Drive towards Glen Helen, following the Red Centre Way.

Black Footed Wallaby

There are a series of gorges off the road but we only stopped at a couple of places along the way as we’re starting to get a bit “gorged out”. The Ochre Pits were an interesting diversion as it’s an area of cliffs where the Aboriginals dig out ochre. At these cliffs there are white, yellow, purple and ochres and they’re still being dug today although not when we were there.
Ormiston Gorge had the major attraction of a small cafe serving decent coffee including iced coffee which was very nice, being composed of decent espresso coffee, ice, ice cream, honey, milk and chocolate sprinkled on top.
Our final stop was at Glen Helen Gorge which is another gorge… The camp site at the gorge is pretty good with the bonus of a bar and restaurant so we booked in for the night.

Glen Helen Gorge

No phone or internet access here so this will have to be posted as and when – probably when we get near Uluru unless we can use the WiFi at the bar here without paying through the nose for it. We’ve bought our permit for tomorrow to cross the Aboriginal lands on the Mereenie Loop down to Kings Canyon. The staff at Glen Helen say the road is mostly in good condition and most of it can be covered at 60kph or more so we should arrive at Kings Canyon early in the afternoon. We’ll stay overnight at Kings Canyon before heading to Uluru where we’ll stay for two nights we think.

One of the views of the Macdonell Ranges from the Ross Highway

Spent today going for a bit of a trundle around the “East Macs” before returning to Alice Springs for the night.
We’d thought a day would be plenty but in all honesty we could have spent 2-3 days there and probably still not visited it all.
We started our day by getting lost in Alice Springs, trying to find a fuel station and then, having refuelled getting lost again trying to get back to the Ross Highway.
When we did eventually “find” the Ross Highway we headed east for the 96km to Arltunga. The first part of the highway is normal 2 lane single carriageway but before long in turns into a layout we’d previously seen on the start of the Gibb River Road. It’s essentially a 2 lane unsealed road but with a single lane of Tarmac running down the middle. This leads to something resembling a game of chicken when there are cars coming the other way. You both have to pass with your offside wheels on the Tarmac and near side wheels on the dirt, it’s just a matter of staying fully on the Tarmac for as long as you can 🙂 I thought I was quite good at it, winning most of the battles but then a road train put me in my place ! Eventually we left the Ross Highway for part of the Binns Track, an unsealed road that takes you the final 33km to Arltunga.

The police house and prison cell

The scenery either side of the road is fantastic, lots of greenery at the moment against a backdrop of red sandstone mountains.
Arltunga itself is an abandoned gold mining town, founded in the late 19th century and abandoned in the early 20th century. Many of the buildings have been rebuilt in an effort to conserve the site. We spent a few hours there visiting the different sites and exploring the buildings and machinery. We got the feeling that at some point the reserve had an injection of cash to build the info centre and museum, rebuild/conserve the buildings etc… but it seems to have lost that momentum. Still fascinating though and in some ways figuring it out for ourselves is more interesting, especially for industrial archeology.

A view of the Cornish boiler, horizontal engine and foundations for the quartz battery

From Artlunga, rapidly running out of day time at this point, we headed back to the Ross Highway before diverting for a trip to the N’Dhala Gorge. There are two attractions that brought us to the N’Dhala Gorge, the first is the 4×4 only track that takes you there and then the Aboriginal artwork when you get there. The track is about 11km long and meanders alongside the Ross River. In places the track crosses the river and on some of the crossings the water is quite deep ! (See video at the bottom of this post)

Aboriginal petroglyph

When we got to the gorge we just had time to complete the 1km gorge walk and get back again so we could retrace our steps to arrive in Alice before it got dark. As a result it was a bit more hurried than we’d have liked but we saw some of the petroglyphs in the gorge, carved into boulders and apparently telling a story.
On the way back to Alice we got stuck behind a slow moving vehicle that turned out to be a 110 Defender towing a Toyota with a trailer. With all the ribbing we’ve been getting about Land Rover reliability it was quite a poetic sight – obviously Pam took a picture 🙂
Tomorrow we still intend to head west but have yet to decide if we’re going to take 2 days to get to Kings Gorge via the West Macs and the Red Centre Way 4×4 track or if we’ll head direct to Kings Gorge on the surfaced roads. Either way we probably won’t have internet access for a few days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7iaJlh-eA&sns=em

Anzac Hill war memorial, Alice Springs

As planned today was a short hop of 138km to Alice Springs so we arrived in Alice mid morning.
Alice Springs came as a bit of a surprise really. I’m not sure exactly what I’d expected but I had in my minds eye something like a flat red dust bowl with a large cluster of buildings standing out in the middle of a plain. In reality Alice Springs is surrounded by hills and if anything is nestled in valleys rather than standing proud on the plain. Apparently this is a common misconception as, we were assured later, many people have exactly the same reaction when they come to Alice for the first time.
We stopped at the info centre first in the town centre and picked up a few leaflets. The permit we need for the Red Centre Way, that we’d planned to buy at the info centre, is issued for a specific day. This meant that we couldn’t buy it in Alice as we don’t know yet what days we’ll need it for, we can buy it at a couple of locations nearer the track though. You need a permit as the track goes through Aboriginal lands.

A view of Alice Springs from Anzac Hill

We visited Anzac Hill which, as well as being the site of the war memorial, is a large hill near the centre of Alice which offers views across the town. We also visited the war museum at the RSL which was more of a room with some interpretation boards. Some interesting “trench art” though.
A quick romp around the Coles supermarket to refresh supplies and we headed to our chosen camp site in the southern part of Alice Springs. We booked in for one night initially so we could plot our plan of action for the region. Once we’d formulated our plan we then booked in for a second night as we will use the camp site as a base while we explore the eastern part of the MacDonnell range tomorrow (Monday). On Tuesday we will then set off west to the Red Centre Way and Kings Canyon and will probably make it to Uluru on Thursday, that’s the current plan anyway – we’ll see what tomorrow brings first !

The devils marbles

Back on the Stuart Highway again today, continuing our progress towards Alice Springs.
Our first stop was at the “Devils Marbles”, an area covered by large spherical (ish) boulders, many of them apparently piled quite precariously on top of each other. Those that aren’t particularly spherical look as if they were flattened by the weight of others, like balls of clay that were dropped while they were still wet.
The most striking part of the day beyond that has been the weather, or more specifically, the temperature. Having got ourselves into a coping strategy for temperatures in the mid to high 30s during the day and 20s at night we’ve suddenly found ourselves feeling cold ! The temperatures today have been in the mid 20s, dropping below 10C. We never thought we’d get used to the high temperatures and humidity and now find ourselves missing the heat – there really is no pleasing some people 🙂

Sculptures at the entrance to the roadhouse

Another stop off on our journey was at the John McDouhall Stuart Memorial which is, from what we can gather, one of three points that can be construed as the centre of Australia. It all depends how you measure it apparently. That particular point was selected by Stuart because of it’s distance between the north and south coasts and east and west coasts. A second point is calculated based on distances from the coastline and a third uses the calculated mass of Australia to find it’s centre of mass. This last method was originally measured using a plumb bob and confirmed with a computer simulation 50 years or so later. We’ve no idea which of the three is correct so will hedge our bets and visit all three if we can !
Alyuen is just a stepping point for us, there’s not much here beyond the roadhouse and a caravan site but it does have some striking sculptures that dominate the entrance to the place. I’m not sure how tall they are, the adults are maybe 30 ft tall, really well sculpted and very enigmatic.
Tomorrow we’ll head into Alice Springs and the info centre there to check road conditions, get a permit for the 4×4 route and so on. We also need to re supply with fruit and veg now we’ve crossed yet another quarantine zone. We’ll camp to the south of Alice tomorrow night and plan our next steps as we’ve a lot we want to do in this area. Will have Telstra signal tomorrow so will add pictures to this post then – signal here is very flaky so posting the text to the site will be challenge enough…

Daly Waters Pub bar

Had an excellent night at Daly Waters, a few beers and a meal in the pub with a live act supplying entertainment. The Daly Waters pub is probably the best pub we’ve visited so far on the trip, a real outback pub.
The rodeo dates on the signs were for last year, as it turned out, so the rodeo actually started this morning at 7am. That gave us the opportunity to see one of the disciplines this morning before we hit the road – the Campdraft. Competitors had to start by isolating one of the cattle from the group in the pen and then, once it was isolated, the gate was opened and they had to guide the beast out of the enclosure and around some markers. Sounds simple but the agility and speed required of both rider and horse is quite something. We spent a couple of hours watching the competition before heading on.

Campdraft – cutting out one of the cattle from the pen

We covered just over 400km today in the end, a bit further than we’d anticipated but as we’d set off in good time and the site were we’re aiming for was nothing spectacular we kept going with a couple of breaks at roadhouses and rest areas. The temperatures are dropping off at the moment as we head south too which makes life a bit more comfortable in the cab. The high in Tennants Creek today was 28C and Alice Springs was a balmy 22C – must dig out the thermal undies !
The landscape has changed noticeably today too. The thick layers of trees and undergrowth at the sides of the road has gradually petered out, replaced more and more by scrub and sandstone outcrops. Sometimes, when you come over the crest of a hill, you can see for such a distance you can see the curve of the horizon.
We may end up with a similar distance tomorrow as that will put us in easy distance of Alice Springs, arriving Sunday morning. As always we’ll take it as it comes.

Still a way to go until Alice – signpost at Mataranka

A short hop from Katherine today, heading for another site with a pub !
With only a bit less than 300km to travel today we had a leisurely start before we hit the road and then stopped for second breakfast at Mataranka at a small gallery and coffee shop. Another proper coffee accompanied by fresh baked scones, jam and cream – we may be in danger of adding back on the weight we’ve both lost on the trip so far !
We stopped off at a couple of historic sites at the edge of Daly Waters.
There is an airstrip which made Daly Waters an important hub in the early years of international and national aviation as well as playing a role in World War 2 as a base for bombers, a hub for refugee flights and air defence during the bombing raids against Darwin and Katherine. The main hangar is still standing and contains an interpretation display although it has seen better days !

The Stuart Tree, Daly Waters

Near the airfield is the “Stuart Tree” which is the remains of an old tree trunk, significant because it has a letter S carved in it that was carved by members of the Stuart expedition that opened up a route between Adelaide and Darwin in the late 19th century. The Stuart highway is named after the same expedition and it’s leader.
Arriving at the Daly Waters Pub, our stop for the night, we were surprised to see it so busy – it turns out that there is an annual rodeo held here on the first weekend of May. It’d be nice to stay and watch part of the Rodeo but it doesn’t seem like anything much will be happening until Saturday Night which would mean staying here for at least 3 nights. Perhaps after a few beers at the pub we may reconsider but realistically I think the timing is impractical.

Easy walking/staggering distance of the pub !

So, tonight we’re camped very close to the pub on a camp site that is rapidly filling up with caravans of all sizes – it reminds me a bit of Billing with people trying to save a spot for “a friend who’s arriving later”, the lone “caravan marshal” has our sympathies 🙂