1st Croc. sighting.

Great excitement today, we saw our first croc.!

So what it was only a little freshwater one, we were estatic!

We saw it on our cruise down Katharine Gorge. This magnificant gorge can really only be seen by boat. As I wasn't too sure of the croc situation we opted for the boat cruise rather than the canoe hire.

The other highlight for the trip was the swim (of course)

I think we should rename the blog, Lets go swimabout!

Go Master B.

We also enjoyed some of the fabulous rock art.

We had a great time. Then headed back to the pool!

Miss B and I hung out listening to the music by the pool under the stars.

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Bitter springs, Mataranka.

Wow, if I could have any sort of swimming pool in my backyard, Bitter Springs would be the one!

Imagine, warm 34 degrees in the water, surrounded by lush pandanus palms and tea tree. Sparkling clear waters and a gentle flowing current. This place was magic!

We entered the main pool then drifted down stream for about 150 metres, climbed out, walked down the rainforest track, to do the whole thing again.

Master B is still declaring Bitter Springs as his number one swimming spot so far!

Big Boy took this photo of Mr M blowing underwater bubbles, yes with his mouth people!

We also ventured into the Homestead thermal pool and checked out the tortioses swimming in the river by torchlight. The children swore they saw a crocs eyes in the night river!

We also checked out the replica Homestead made for the filming of "We of the Never Never" the story of Jeanne Gunn raising her family in the Never Never bushland.

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Drying out at the Devils Marbles.

Not exactly drying out in the alcohol sense, that stuff is virtually impossible to come by in these parts.
I mean drying out, the dampness.

But, yay, we managed a sunrise and sunset, hooray.

We left a soggy Alice Springs, all fired up on our first takeaway coffees for ages and headed to the Devils Marbles campground.

Well actually, we were originally heading to here

Wycliffe Well, but the ufo stuff kind of put us off so we decided to chance a campsite at the marbles.

This is our lunch stop in the infamous Barrow Creek, the place where 2 British backpackers were abducted in mysterious circumstances.

As luck would have it we got a great campsite for a whopping $7.70 for the night. No power and only drop toilets eww. We got there and for the entertainment of our neighbours proceeded to totally drag all our bedding, towells etc out into the heat and sunshine to dry out.

Then we scrambled around on the rocks taking photos.

How Aussie is this photo?

Wow.

After tea we gathered around a campfire for a talk given by the Ranger and a Traditional owner of the land.

They told us that the marbles were made by the devil man pulling hairs out of his head and rolling them into balls. It was also a meeting point for four tribes. They told us about some of the local bush tucker and several stories from the dreamtime.

The early morning sunrise was magic.

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Can you believe this is Alice Springs?

I thought the centre of Australia was meant to be arid. Ha, not when we were in Alice. It poured.

This is the view in the caravan park at 4pm.

And a bit later!

The "dry" Todd River.

There was even water over the road!

We are looking forward to heading North to the warm and hopefully dry weather!

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The Todd River - flowing!

Glen Helen Resort, the long way around!

Due to the torrential rains we were unable to take the short cut, 250 kms of dirt road from Kings Canyon to Glen Helen.

Our campsite the first night.

During the late afternoon we watched four wheel drive rigs rolling into camp absolutely covered in red mud.  After chatting to a few whose general advice was "Don't do it Mate" we decided to take the main road, all 600kms of it rather than risk sliding off the road.

Around we went and happy we were too!  We caught up with some friends and camped right under the magnificent Glen Helen Gorge at the Homestead in the West McDonnell Ranges.

"Cheers, to good friends, good camping and the magnificant Glen Helen Gorge"

This is Serpentine Gorge, Oh boy what a climb. Well done Miss B you brave girl!

Another of Glen Helen

Ormiston Gorge

The Ochre pits

Aren't the colours magic!

Ellery Creek Big Hole.

Miss B's highlight. Wild horses.

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Kings Canyon

The day we travelled to Kings Canyon was absolutely freezing! It rained at Yalara the night before and everything was very damp.

You can't book campsites at Kings Canyon so it was first in best dressed. Around those parts, first in is 10 am, we got there around 3pm so a damp unpowered night was ours to enjoy!

We had several creek crossings to make.

Close your eyes Mrs M and hope for the best!

Despite the damp night, the next day we walked to the canyon. It was fantastic, the rains had filled the creek and we had to do some rock hopping to cross the stream.

Kings Creek flowing.

Layered rocks at Kings Creek.

Kings Canyon

Crossing the creek, dressed for the snow!

 Despite the cold, it was great fun! We rugged up and battened down the hatches and locked the food and footwear away from the dingos.

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The Olgas or Kata Tjuta.

I must confesss we didn't leave anough time for Uluru and the Olgas so by the time we got to the Olgas we were very cold and tired.  We had to work hard to convince Master B to hop out of the car and have a look around.

We also didn't realise how far the Olgas were from Uluru. It didnt look very far but there was a lot of winding roads to travel.

Here are a few snaps.

Master B calls this the "big bottom crack"

"Chilling out"

The Olgas were made up of a different composition to Uluru. They seemed to be clumps of small rocks joined together. (Can you tell I am not a Geologist?)

More rocks!

This looks more like the postcard sort of view!

We enjoyed our walk around but really wish we had had more time.

No sunset or sunrise photos for us.

We will just have to visit again sometime.

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The Rock

Well what can you say about Uluru (Ayers Rock)!  We were very excited to get here.

On the way we passed the undie tree.

Not sure what the undie tree was all about, but it was fun.

First night camping for the trip.

And guess what? During the night, it rained!

First proper glimpse.

It really is rather magnificent.

Dressed in our warmest gear, you would have thought we were at the snow!

I have about 100 more photos of the rock.

More to come soon!

At the moment I am blogging in the car just out of Tennent creek. It is 28 degrees, not rain or clouds. Yay!

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