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Published: March 7th 2010
We may have crossed the Nullabor and made it to Ceduna, it looked like such a great distance on the map but we still had 470 kilometres to drive before we would reach Port Augusta. The landscape changed after Ceduna and we were in a slightly more populated region. The landscape reminded me of the prairies of northern America, all arable land, green and golden, and crops ready for harvest as far as the eye could see. We passed a few big industrial centres for processing grain, and many a combine harvester, this was one of the great bread baskets of Australia. We finally reached Port Augusta though and after a night in a free campsite by a local beach we started out drive through the south Australian outback to Alice springs, it was a tough two days and after 1221 kilometres we made it into the Norther Territory and to Alice Springs.
We did a bit of sightseeing around Alice Springs. We popped into the Museum of central Australia, and after we took a visit to Reptile World. There were some awesome reptiles there, got to hold a few of them. Ste held a python which was a bit
West McDonald Ranges
Our hike through the riverabove my comfort level; I did get to hold a beaded dragon lizard though who seemed to like my hair and climbed all over my head, we both got to hold a blue-tongued skink as well.
Anyway, we ended up waiting an extra two days in Alice Springs with most of it spent chilling in the nice cool pool at our campsite, just so we could have a roast dinner on the Sunday in the attached bar to the campsite, for just $12 it was more of an all you can each carvery and we were not disappointed and the few drinks we had afterwards went down very well indeed. Two of our evenings in Alice Springs we stopped by to feed the wild rock wallabies that came down to the edge of our campground at sunset for a bit of nosh! It was awesome, they are like mini Kangaroos and so cute. Especially the smaller ones, we were even lucky enough to see a mum wallaby with a baby in her pouch who came up to us for a feed.
Gemma suggested a visit to the Royal Flying Doctors visitor centre where she lured me
Alice Springs
Mommy Wallaby with baby in pouch in with the promise I could go on a flight simulator to test my flying ability. And typically, when we got there, the simulator was out of order. Things only got worse though as we were sitting waiting to view a video when a tour bus of up to a million retirees arrived in to join us. After listening to their chatter about dentures and blue rinses the video presentation was actually very interesting and the whole tour of the centre only took up just over an hour of our day.
Leaving Alice Springs we headed west to the West McDonnell Ranges where stayed in the National Park campsite near Ormiston Gorge and spent two days hiking around the surrounding area, swimming in the natural watering hole at Ormiston Gorge and beating the living daylights out of the hundreds and hundreds of flies that surrounded us, they were unrelenting. It’s an aspect of outback life that no one tells you about.
We only spent two nights in the MacDonnell ranges and hit the road again a day earlier than planned to make our way down to Kings Canyon. On leaving the West MacDonnell ranges and
Road Trippin'
Gemma poses as we enter 'The Northern Territory'. Alice Springs we had a deluge of rain and being in the outback we had sudden flash flooding. Many of the roads go through small river beds rather than a bridge over them and we had a few tense moments driving through these flowing rivers with fingers crossed in the hope that the water didn’t flood our engine. We never thought we would be in the centre of Australia and have such a lot of rain, the landscape completely changes. The Todd River going through Alice Springs was full and overflowing, not something that happens very often. The week after we left, Alice Springs had the highest rainfall that they have had in over 100 years.
We stayed only a night in Kings Canyon taking in the 6.5km rim walk of the canyon itself. It did rain for a majority of the walk but we enjoyed it none the less, we had some great views of the canyon and the Garden of Eden was a little hidden oasis paradise. It was well worth our brief detour. After Kings Canyon we headed towards Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. We saved the best for last, not before more rain got in
Road Trippin'
Our view as we made our way north our way though. But that’s for another blog!
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Rex
non-member comment
Reptile names
Hi Gemma and ste. Thanks for visiting my place in Alice (the Reptile Centre). I'm glad you liked it. Just a quick note on names. The lizard you are holding is Jaffa and he is a bearded dragon, he would love to be a thorny devil but he is just not (t)horny enough for that...and Frank Spencer (whom is named after the very famous Frank Spencer and has the same character traits) is a Spencer's Goanna. I hope you enjoyed Alice Springs and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here in oz. Cheers, Rex.