Alice Springs - tours outside

On Wednesday we did our own West MacDonnell Ranges tour.  We drove in to most of the gorges and by the end of the day felt we were over gorges for the day!  It was a lovely day, bright and sunny, showing up the red of the ranges.  There are beautiful flowers in abundance, after lots of rain earlier this year.  In fact some rain has still been falling more recently.  There was water in creeks and rivers, just a little flowing here and there and good sized water holes.  We saw places like Ormiston Gorge, Glen Helen,Ellery Creek Big Hole, Serpentine, Standley Chasm, Simpsons Gap.  Each is off the main road 4 to 10 ks. and then a walk to the point itself.  So we were in and out of the car often.  It was good not to be towing the caravan.  In all that was about 300 kilometers for the day.  These are all beautiful places.  The drive is along the valley with the ranges either side.

Today (Thursday 2 Sept), we have joined a tour to Hermannsburg Historic Precinct and then on to Palm Valley. Formerly Hermannsberg Lutheran Mission, it was established in1877.  This area was the birthplace of Albert Namatjira and also was the home of his family - we were shown the little house where he lived and a gallery of many pictures by him and the larger Namatjira family.

This is a 4wd trip, after bitumen to Hermannsburg, we then followed the Finke River bed, crossing many times, driving through sand and rough stoney ground.  There were also some lovely sights to see here, and a couple of walks.  One walk along the Palm creek to see the Cycads, and then later an hour or so walking along the escarpment above Palm Valley and then down to return beside the creek.  This was hot work, as it was the middle of the day and not very covered.  These red cabbage palms are unique to this area only.  We could only look at them.  The path does not lead through them, where it may have been cooler.  After lunch we climbed to a lookout to see another amazing view from Kalangarra lookout.

We returned to the caravan park by about 6.30 (late because the bus was making a strange noise and the driver called for a replacement bus to pick us up - near town by then), and we had been the first to be picked up and the last off.  Tired again.