Alice Springs to Katherine

Alice Springs

After King’s Canyon, we headed onwards to Alice Springs. Not the friendliest feeling town, with our first encounter of police-guarded liquor stores, paid public toilets, locked down camping grounds etc. This was very different to the country towns we have passed through. I sent Kieren off with the kids to do my shopping in peace, forgetting that coming out of the shops I didn’t have the carkeys. I was harassed for money quite a bit so ended up sitting hidden beside our 4WD surrounded by shopping bags until Kieren arrived! Note to self: shopping as a family is sometimes a good idea!

We stayed at the Showgrounds again which gave the kids ample space to ride their bikes and watch the horses adjisted in the grounds. We felt very safe here as it was quite a way out of town and we were locked in from 6.30pm-7.30am.

The next day we caught up on some schoolwork – this is what school looks like for us:

Yay! Dad’s rock as school teachers! Then we went to see The School of the Air for Central Australia. We got to see their fortnightly assembly and a few other classes! We also met 2 of the students the next few days in the National Park we next visited.

We came back to Alice Springs to restock and do some work (the only phone reception available for a long while! Not happy Optus!) This time we bit into our budget and took the kids to “The Desert Park” – kind of like an Australian outback zoo. We had an absolutely fabulous afternoon learning all about birds of prey, nocturnal desert animals & reptiles, and the more common animals such as emus, kangaroos & dingoes. Invaluable education for the kids – particularly when we realised there were probably only 2 other families there that day, so ranger talks were fantastically interactive.

Thorny Devils - Miss T's favourite!

West Macdonnell Ranges – Ormiston Gorge.

Sandwiched between our Alice Springs stops was an amazing trip to the national park 1.5hrs west of Alice. We stayed at Ormiston Gorge for 2 nights and completed the Gorge Pound Walk on the second day. This was another 7km walk, but a lot harder than King’s Canyon, as the last 1-2km are climbing (literally) over dry boulders through the gorge to the end waterhole. The view from the lookout over the pound (valley surrounded by mountains – a natural stockyard for mustering) was amazing.

We saw pure wild dingoes drinking from the waterhole and heard them howling at night. We also visited the nearby Ochre Pits where aboriginals used to obtain ochre for ceremonial use/or trade it with other tribes. The other fun part of this trip was meeting 2 other families! We’re all heading similar directions too so will no doubt have some more adventures together.

 

Ochre pits

The race to Devil’s Marbles

We’ve realised that sometimes caravanning is a race in the sparsely populated outback. If you get to the next stop when it’s full, that can mean driving past dinnertime or having to stop by the side of the road with Roadtrains rushing past all night at 130km/hr. So this time we were prepared. We left Alice early and had all our food packed in the car to minimise rest stops. Even so, we arrived at Devils Marbles at 2.30pm with only a few caravan spots left! Luckily another lovely family got the last spot next to us amidst all the grey nomads. So we had a wonderful time hiking around the stone formations and then the kids played together whilst the adults talked (and listened to the state of origin of course).

The sunset was spectacular and so was the sunrise the next morning. It was sad saying goodbye to our newly made friends as all of us had so much fun!

Longreach Waterhole, Elliott

In Tessa’s words: This was magic. Possibly one of the most captivating places of natural beauty I have ever seen. The road in is horrid – sandy and corrugated – we had fun testing out the 4WD for the first time (nothing like trying 4WD first towing a caravan!) But the end was well worth it -  A 200km lake with birdlife like I’ve never seen before. It is a pelican nursery where they teach all the young hatchlings to fish & fly, as well as many birds of prey, cormorants, ibis, cranes, finches, wrens, wagtails, etc. It had us mesmerised (and Miss E got to try out her birthday binoculars!) We were also able to have a campfire at night which was so relaxing. Unfortunatley (or not!) it didn’t have any phone reception so we had to leave the next day even though we all wanted to stay here for a week. Thanks for the tip Aunty Anne & Uncle Rog!!

Mataranka – Bitter Springs

Our next stop was near the site of the filming of “We of the Never, Never” – anyone remember this movie? It suddenly became tropical here – complete with welcome thunderstorm. We were able to visit the local springs where you float down a spring-fed creek at a beautiful 34 degrees amidst turtles & fish. Very memorable!

Katherine Gorge & Edith Falls

Today’s walks were small (2 x 1 km) but very hot! Luckily we got to swim at the waterhole at Edith Falls as Katherine Gorge swimming (Nitmiluk) was closed due to croc sightings.