Rock the top end

Lake Ballard

 

First night on the road.  Following a good days drive arrived at Lake Ballard late in the afternoon, initially having the place to ourselves.  Later some others arrived and only 1 other couple camped the night.

 

Great location with some nice muddy sections on the salt lake still which had to be traversed in order to get some photos….

 

Capped the day off with a nice evening camp fire and glass of wine..

Great Central Road

 

Tagged as the longest shortcut, not to mention the bumpiest.

Laverton in WA through the Victoria Desert to Yulara it totalled near one thousand km’s of gravel and sand road/track.  At sections the road was wide as a freeway, smooth as a good bitumen road though never together and not for long, the rest was gravel or chunks of rock, sand, low dunes and at places just over single track.

Not much traffic on the road, though one passing 4wd managed to throw one of the large pieces of gravel into the windscreen leaving a nice chunk of windscreen claimed by the road.  Still holding together so far and not spreading, yet.

Stayed a couple of nights along the road, both nice locations though the second night (just inside NT) would have been nicer if the facilities had been working…

Spectacular scenery nearing the WA/NT border and into NT near Docker River.

Uluru—Kata Tjuta National Park

 

Set-up for 5 nights (cold) in the red centre with 1 early morning under the belt already and preparing for the remainder to be early starts also.

Walked around the base of Uluru finding a little local alongside of the track.  Many people walked past not even noticing, some even after Shane got up from lying on the ground with a camera…  Some seemed to be going for a personal best lap time..

Kata Tjuta valley of the Wind walk was good, though busy even though we started directly after dawn hitting the track before 8am.  Only the 2nd lot of people starting on the track we were closely followed by 2 coach loads, then passed even more on the way round.

Kings Canyon

 

We did the Rim walk of Kings Canyon today, 6km / 4 hrs starting with a steep climb up the canyon wall to get to the rim.  Very spectacular views along the walk, about half way along the walk goes back down the canyon into the Garden of Eden, steps have been put in for some of the steep sections in this area though the steps themselves are pretty severe.

Nice and relaxing at the bottom in the Garden of Eden, and on a hot day it would be very pleasant.  Leaving the garden means climbing the other canyon wall to get back to the top, then walk along the rim again back to the car park.

One thing for this walk is you are never lonely for long, amazing the constant stream of people along the 6km walk.

The shorter walks were much easier and at Kathleen Springs there were very few people, actually having some time in the peace and quiet of the water at the spring.

Had a Dingo visit one night not long after we went to bed, it forced it’s way under the awning walls (almost bringing down one corner of the annex) into the enclosed annex.  Hearing the noise I went to investigate with the Dingo making a hasty exit under the camper via an easier path.  The howling of the Dingoes was very impressive at night and was their confidence and temperament around the campground.

Mereenie Loop, West MacDonnell National Park

 

Took the Mereenie Loop from Kings Canyon to the West MacDonnell ranges staying a night at Glen Helen Gorge.

The Mereenie Loop was open for 4wd’s only and sections of the road proved to be the roughest to date.  Corrugations that were bad regardless of speed or location on the road, with significant time spend driving off the main road on softer sand on the edge of the road.  Found a couple of really good dips and holes, one right on the crest of a hill.  The corrugations managed to shake the head of the snorkel on the car off, shaking it up the snorkel to come off.  Along the way came across a couple of dingoes, one which when we stopped hung around keeping about 15m away regardless of where I moved.

Stopping at Glen Helen gorge just for a night, great location to the gorge and an impressive view from camp.

On the run into Alice we stopped at a few great lookouts, some allow overnight camping right at the top with 360° views.  These will have to wait for next time.  We will be doing a day trip or two back out into the West MacDonnell National Park from Alice.

Alice Springs Based

 

Based ourselves in Alice Springs for a while..

Palm Valley—Finke Gorge  Took a drive to Palm Valley, with a good 4wd track to be negotiated to get into the Valley area itself, the toughest of the trip so far with the normal rough road, soft sands and some rocky outcrops to be negotiated.  The Palms in the Valley are remnants from much wetter times long ago.  Good fun doing the 4wd’ing though a long day on the road.

 

Hot Air Ballooning -  An early start…  Cloud cover overnight (and a few drops of rain) stopped the morning from be very cold, it was just cold.  A nice calm morning with the flight itself being great, though unfortunately we didn’t see any wildlife from the air.  This was followed with a great 4 course breaky, with chocolate cake.. Yum..

 

Standley Chasm & Simpsons Gap  - Tackled both of these after Hot Air Ballooning, being close to town it was handy.  Standley Chasm lights up between 11am & 1pm as the light reaches down this narrow gap, though it also means everyone comes at the same time, nice and busy.  Simpsons Gap was a nice change as it was quieter and had some water, one of a handful of permanent waterholes.

To finish a big day in the evening we did a nocturnal tour of the Desert Park, this was great.  Only the 2 of us with 2 tour guides, can’t get more personalised than that.  Saw lots of little critters.

Chambers Pillar  - Another early head off to Chambers Pillar south of Alice, pretty much gravel road and 4wd track all the way, some 150+km’s.  In many ways the pillar (sandstone) was more impressive from a distance coming in, parts of the track in were tricky though no where near what is made out by locals or in available info.  The flies were bad, though it would not be long till this was bettered...

 

Rainbow Valley  - Took a short cut across a stock route to get to Rainbow Valley, again another case of locals saying the road was a lot worse than it actually was.  Spent a good couple of hours at Rainbow Valley waiting for sunset and the best light for photographing this, keeping me occupied.