Blogs from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 3

Alice Springs is nestled in between the McDonald Ranges. A mountain range of 9,709,870 acres. The range is 400miles (644km) of parallel ridges, which run east and west of Alice Springs. The highest peak is Mount Zeli, 5023ft (1531m). The ranges were named after Sir Richard Macdonald, who at the time was the Governor of South Australia. They were named by John McDouall Stuart, whose expedition of April 1860 discovered the mountain range. In 1872 William Whitfield Mills, from Plymouth, Devon, England, finished laying a 3200km overland telegraph line from Darwin to Port Augusta in South Australia. The southern Entrance to Alice Springs is situated at a water gap in the McDonald ranges. W.W.Miles named this gap Heavitree Gap, after the school he attended in Plymouth. Nowadays it houses the main road and railway. The Heavitree ... read more

This was supposed to be a day of rest, but with some further exploration of Alice Springs. The temperature is again supposed to be in the high thirties, so we decided to get out fairly early and get back to the resort to hang out at the pool later. How do you know you’re getting older, or maybe smarter? When you take a cab to the top of Anzac Hill so you don’t have to walk up! Mind you, part of the reason was the heat. Anzac Hill commemorates Australia’s participation in all wars. It overlooks the town and is quiet so one can ponder why there are wars, and why democratic countries are always ready to get involved to help other nations. For us, it re-enforces our belief in this, since we missed Remembrance Day ... read more

Today we got to see what the Outback looks like, at least for the area between Coober Pedy and Alice Springs. The next few days will be quite different, as we explore Uluru (Ayers Rock). Coober Pedy got a lot of rain and thunderstorms overnight. Lots of puddles all over, since it’s pretty flat here. We heard several smaller landing strips are closed until the runway water evaporates. Evidence of the rain is all over for the first 4 hours of our bus ride towards Alice Springs. We heard of power outages and Internet interruptions. But everybody survived! The landscape today varies a lot. From trees to no trees, from rock to soil, from brown soil to red soil, from fenced grazing lands to unfenced areas. Several times our bus driver needed to slow down for ... read more

Our next main stop was Alice Springs and then Ayres Rock. However on the drive down from Kakadu we stopped at a few different places. Our first stop was Edith Falls. A waterfall flowing in to a big pool and a hike that takes you up to the start of the fall. We spent most of the morning in the bottom pool then decided to do the climb to the top one. It was a circular walk so after choosing the shorter route up, we started climbing. The overall result was worth it. There were two big pools at the top and another little Falls. We swam and read there for hours before doing the rest of the circle back. On the way back we saw our second snake. A tree snake, which apparently won't kill ... read more

Geo: -23.7004, 133.881It seems ages since the last blog. We spent 3 lovely warm days in Mataranka, swimming in the thermal pools. The caravan park had certainly filled up since our last visit a few weeks ago. On Wednesday the 7th we were going to stay at the free camp Newcastle Waters but after seeing that it was on a hill covered in dolomite we decided to drive on to Renner Springs and stayed in the caravan park there. What a surprising place this was on the highway. It is still a working farm but caters to the travellers. Being lazy we decided to eat tea at the pub. Still can't get used to country meals. Friggin huge. We still have the cold wind and unfortunately it is a head wind. Not great for towing a ... read more