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Central Australia Trip June-July 2010 ................................................................................ Last Leg. Maree to Clare Valley
A quiet night somewhere outback. Tea time.
Near Lake Eyre..The endless inland Sea at the moment.
The Oodnadata track is getting sticky. Learning more about this 4WD caper. Often saw the back of the Tvan trying to overtake us! Center diff lock works a treat and greatly improves traction and steering. I often wondered what it was for.
Could not cross a river it was 2 meters deep. Waited overnight with another small group. The river had subsided by morning so we could escape this bleak spot. Only high clearance 4WD's got through next morning. The track was then closed. People we camped with here had camped close to the river bed. In the early hours of the morning the river had rapidly risen and they only just got to high ground. Another group further along could not get out except on foot and lost their 4WD to the water. ..........................................................................................
Alice Springs..East MacDonnell Ranges
Aboriginal Rock Art that represent the 'caterpillars story' from the Dreamtime.
Probably the best Gorge..remote John Hayes Rockhole. Only accessible with high clearance 4WD's. Great walks through the Gorge. Next to Trephina Gorge which is easy to get to in a conventional car, but lots of people here.
Dinner Tonight.
Certainly a lot of flowering plants around after all the rain.
Trephina Gorge. Plant on right of snap is a Holly Leafed Grevillia with Spinifex around base.
Bottom of Trephina Gorge. A delightful place.
More Petroglyphs
The well known Chambers Pillar.Camped here after a rough journey in. Very wet tracks but drying up the more we journey south.
Common Red Capped Robin
Two very good walks here at Chambers Pillar, and full of wildflowers as shown in snaps below.
Wildflowers and another Pillar in the background. Seed at front is Spinifex Grass.
.............................................................................................................................. Newhaven to Alice Springs and Palm Valley. June 6.
Lots of these around. Left to fend for themselves after various explorers used them and let them go into the Wild. There are more camels in Australia than in the Middle East.
As mentioned before, kept the chainsaw busy. Its so cold we just have to have a fire to keep warm at breakfast and evenings. This shot was at sundown waiting on a sunset that would hopefully, herald a better day tomorrow.
Looks like a good day tomorrow!
Bush Tomato. We had a good weather situation next day. More rain expected in 2 days.
Camp at Newhaven. Sun at last to charge up the 4 batteries.
Wild flowers.
A Herbacious looking cacti type plant, well equiped to deal with the hot weather of Summer.
Two types of Acacia at Newhaven's Potato Gorge. Round flower is a Curry Wattle
Potato Gorge. Marika taking a break. We waited here at Newhaven Bird Conservation area for the roads to dry up so we could escape to our next venue, Alice Springs again for one night. Then off to Palm Valley via Hermansburg.
No wonder the roads are trashed and grader drivers constantly have to re grade thousands of kilometers of road. Didn't offer to pull him out.
Palm Valley. An oasis in the desert. Has not stopped raining for 2 days again. The 4WD had water up to the doors the carpet is wet inside, as we crossed the river 6 times. Waiting again for weather to improve. Its stopped raining, so we will escape to the East MacDonall Ranges in a day or two via another night in night in Alice Springs. Will leave the area and head south to the Flinders Ranges and hopefully some good weather. The weather in Central Australia is forecast to stay cold and soggy for quite sometime.
.......................................................................................................................................... Alice Springs-Newhaven 30 June
White plumed honey eater baby
Black faced Cuckoo Shrike.
A Pied Stilt.
Thorny Devil
Waiting out some more bad weather with a Marika bird.
................................................................. The West McDonnell Ranges. 27 JUNE
Spinifex pigeon for the Twitchers
Aniversary..25 years. Great night.
Inside the Gosse Crater.Gosses Bluff
Gosses Crater view some miles away on the Merindee Loop road.
Serpentine gorge.
'Waterhole' Petroglyph at Roma.
'You tell me what it is' Petroglyph at Roma Gorge.
8km River Bed drive to Roma Gorge.. Short stop at the Ochre Cliffs where the natives used to gather pigments for their body painting etc.
............................................................................................. The Breakaway Country and Painted Dessert. June 17 We have traveled 4000km so far and not even at the halfway mark. Great sights but a lot of Desert flatness between highlights. The attraction for us is to camp out in the vast emptiness with no one around. We just head off the track behind a sand dune or rise and setup for the night. Each day up to Uluru, we travelled for about 5 hours and made camp at 3 each afternoon. Here in Uluru we stayed in the Ayers Rock camping ground for 3 nights. Off tommorrow to Kings Canyon as we head further north but keeping away from the main highways. The rough terrain set up is performing well so far. Averaging a tad over 13 L per 100km .
Cold Nights. Wood is Mulga and very hard to cut but burns well.
In the Cooberpedy Opal Fields. Temperature gets so hot in Summer, most folk live under ground in carved out rock caverns. We tried one for a night for the experience. Very stuffy let alone claustrophobic. But probably a blessing when outside temperatures are 40 -50 Deg C.
We arrived in Cooberpedy on the day that the Japanese satellite, Hayabusa, returned to Earth after a 2 billion kilometer journey to sample material from an asteroid. We stepped outside of our underground accommodation at 11.20PM to witness its return.
On our way to the Painted Desert we passed through The Breakaways Country. The colours are incredible.
Camped out here in the Painted Desert. Below freezing at night.
Another view of the painted Desert.
Wash Day off The Gunbarrel Highway.
Ayers Rock Sunset
Sunset itself into the West.
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