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Published: January 11th 2016
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After two great days at Ayres Rock it was time to hit the road, the first stop was on Lasseter’s Highway at Mt Connor then it was on to the Kings Creek station not far from amazing Kings Canyon. On arrival I decided to go up in a tiny little helicopter which was fun even though I was only up for 10 minutes or so the views of the property were also quite pleasant. We then travelled to Kings Canyon were we walked around the rim photographing the peculiar red domes before descending into the canyon and following Kings Creek to the Garden of Eden which has some lovely rare vegetation including ancient cycad palms.
On leaving Kings Canyon we returned to the Stuart Highway and continued north to the tiny town of Stuart Wells where we stopped to see Dinky the singing Dingo do his thing on the piano, he was very talented and our travelling companions loved the show.
An hour or two later we pulled into Alice Springs the largest town in Central Australia where Mike dropped us at our hostel Annie’s Place. We agreed to meet the rest of the tour group for dinner at
Bojangles hotel which was just a few streets away. The hostel is built around a pool and our room is not too bad although it is close to the water. Around 7 pm we headed to the pub to meet the other travellers, Ruth and I had a good meal and drank quite a few beers as we enjoyed the company of our driver Mike and our fellow travellers leaving quite late and returning to our hostel which was a mad house of drunken children, it was a pretty sleepless night.
Next morning after a big cooked breakfast at a local café we walked up Anzac Hill to admire the views of the town before heading on to Alice Springs Reptile Centre which was a lot of fun, we didn't have any transport so were limited in what we could do on foot, later we visited Todd Street mall where I was looking to purchase a didgeridoo with no luck. That evening we caught up with Mike again for dinner.
The next morning we were picked up by our new driver who was a bit of dimwit and a bit of an embarrassment as well and went to
various hostels and hotels picking up other travellers. Soon we were again heading north stopping briefly at Wycliffe Wells Roadhouse which claims to be the UFO capital of Australia before continuing on to the Devils Marbles in the early afternoon when the light was particularly striking. The marbles glowed in the evening light evening light and the sun set was memorable. We stayed 18 kilometres further down the road at Wauchope, in our tent out the back of the 1930 hotel; we popped in for a beer or two before joining our new travel companions for a barbecue dinner.
Next stop was 250 kilometres north at the Daly Waters hotel, the environment is changing from a dry climate to a humid tropical one and the vegetation is getting greener and thicker as we travel. The pub was a lovely place to take a break in the middle of the morning but after lunch it was time to continue on to Katherine. In the early afternoon we arrived in Nitmiluk National Park stopping at Edith Falls where we spotted a bower bird before clambering into a Kayak and paddling down the stunning Katherine Gorge before climbing into the
water for a refreshing dip.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
We spent 2 months in Australia. We took a train from Sydney to Perth and hope to get to the Darwin area on our next trip. Looks great