The Red Centre Sept 2019

Thursday 26 September Today was the big road trip back to Alice Springs for one night before flying out. 450 ish km mostly on the Lasseter and Stuart highways so easy driving. The Stuart speed limit is 130kph so you can cover the ground fairly quickly. All up the trip took about 5.5 hours with a few rest stops. Once back we spent an hour or so at the Olive Pink botanical gardens before tea at Iron Jacks grill. Our last night was at Lasseters which is very nice. A fine end to a fine holiday. The weather had warmed up a bit and now in the pleasant high 20s which we would normally find very hot! The pool. Very inviting but we didn't swim as it wasn't hot enough! The Olive Pink gardens were pretty (named after a prominent lady from way back).

Wednesday 25 September Did the “base walk” around Uluru this morning as it was fine but not too hot. The walk is about 10.6km. Janet managed all but the last couple of km which was good. Great close up views of the Rock and several areas where “no photos “ requested due to the significance of the features. Saw a fleet of Segways go past. Also a throng of people climbing again as the last few days had been closed due to the weather. Many appeared to be making hard work of it and I think quite a few who set out may only go part way. Last chance to climb Uluru, it closes in a month and the climbing chain will be removed. The segways are coming! Later we took our “included” helicopter flight and saw the rock and Yalura from the air. Found out that only 20% of the towns power comes from the solar farms and the rest from a diesel generator. Great views and the aerial perspective helped put the town, rock, etc into context. Towards sunset time we headed out again to K...

Tuesday 24 September It actually rained a little today and was quite cool. Uluru is “semi arid” receiving on average 350mm of rain per year. As mentioned before there has been only 7mm in the last 12 months so the locals are very keen for more. We went back to Uluru in the morning for a close up look and to walk a couple of the shorter tracks. Joined a free ranger guided walk for an hour so and learned about the significance of parts of the rock and some of the caves to the local Anangu people. Uluru on a cloudy day.  Rain ponchos out.  Later we went to the Field of Light art installation. This has been set up near Yalura in 2016 and is planned to remain till 2020. We had a buffet dinner out in the sand dunes with bus loads of others. It was quite fun but freezing and sadly full cloud cover so the sunset over the rocks and the astronomy talk didn’t quite come off as planned. The field of lights was amazing. It extended in all directions. We walked throu...

Monday 23 September Really early start today in order to see the sunrise over the great rocks at a recommended site where there are views of both. This involved a 45 minute drive to arrive well before the official sunrise time of 6:36am so had to set the alarm quite early! Unfortunately it wasn’t the best morning with quite a bit of cloud so not such great views. Uluru was very pretty.  Kata Tjuta was a bit ho hum today.

Sunday 22 September Another road trip to Yulara which is the new ish tourist town near Uluru Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta the Olgas. Not quite such a long drive so we were able to settle in and then head out to catch the sunset over Uluru. Pretty spectacular!! We gave it a thorough photographing. Also had time for a pre sunset drive around the rock. There was a steady stream of people climbing, no doubt wanting to do it before it’s no longer allowed and the route is closed in a months time. For some time the local Aboriginal custodians of Uluru have made it clear that they prefer people not to climb on their sacred place but this is often ignored it seems. Uluru sunset.  Climbers. 

Friday 20 & Saturday 21 September Set out for Kings Canyon which was a long drive. We stopped at a couple of highway “road houses “ which feed, fuel, and accommodate travellers. They are a hangover from the old days in terms of location but nowadays provide fair dinkum Aussie outback facilities. There’s nowhere else to get fuel so need to keep a close eye on the fuel gauge and plan ahead. Erldunda road house has a claim to fame as being the centre of central Australia. Erldunda road house girl.  Made a small 15km detour on a dirt road to see the site of the Henbury meteorites strike. There were large craters 10's of metres across apparently caused by meteorites the size of large barrels (but travelling very fast!) Where part of the meteor hit (some considerable  time ago). Made it to Kings Canyon after what seemed ages just on dark. Next day we were up early for Phil to walk the canyon rim and get the early light. The walk is moderately strenuous and gets ...

Thursday 19 September Spent the day around Alice Springs visiting the Desert Park and a few art galleries down town.  The Desert Park is a nature reserve come open zoo intended to show the natural desert habitats and flora and fauna of the area. It is very well done with lots of ranger presentations and the like. We spent all morning and early afternoon there in the heat and for the first time felt very cooked by the sun, although not burnt fortunately. The bird show was a favourite with birds of prey swooping low over the audience and a bustard demonstrating how to crack open an emu egg with a stone. Apparently this is an instinctive behaviour for them not a skill taught by other birds.  At the art galleries we just about talked ourselves into another large aboriginal work. It was very impressive. But we have given ourselves a few days to think it over and I suspect cool heads will prevail.  The bustard having a cracking time.  Everyone was fi...

Another early start to join a day trip tour to Palm Valley. We left the highway at Hermansberg on to a 4WD track. It was a very bumpy ride and involved some serious holes and obstacles that definitely needed a serious off road vehicle to negotiate. Palm Valley is home to palm trees which is a bit strange out here and cycads (one of the earliest plants known) as well as generally spectacular rock formations. It was very hot again but we enjoyed the day very much. Janet’s walking poles had their first outing and were pronounced a success. Our driver/guide was called Bluey, a fair dinkum Aussie if ever there was one and an outstanding guide. After Palm Valley we visited Hermansberg town. It started off a a Lutheran mission station in early mid 1800’s. It was remarkable to hear what the people suffered in this and other very remote outback locations. Today there is a somewhat restored compound of buildings and artifacts from the time. One thing that has stood the test of...