We head WEST

Every day is a weekend when travelling on the road. Many of time we ask each other what the day is instead of the date so now we call pretty much every day a Sunday. Though, we always know when school holidays are on when caravan park rates triple, free sites are full by lunch time, and all touristy things are taken over by kids and their persisted screaming. So, being a Sunday we packed up our things and headed west for the MacDonnalds Ranges hoping to get away from all the havoc in the caravan park. This area west of Alice Springs is known for beautiful swimming gorges and amazing area walks. Though most gorges had similar landscapes and waterholes, there was always something different about each one whether it was the trees, the width of the creek, the height of the gorge cliffs, or the amount of water in it. Each was worth the drive in.

Most of the waterholes allowed swimming but when days are averaging 15 and two jumpers still aren’t enough to keep us warm, the crystal clear waters still didn’t persuade us.  One downer was the amount of dead fish at the banks of the larger waterholes. Apparently in the colder months a bacterium grows on the gills of the fish which eventually restricts the oxygen intake.  They say it’s a natural occurrence. I say it’s a  bummer in the photos...

Along the tourist drive we did find an amazing free site overlooking most of the range which was made all the more better with free wood for a raging fire for dinner. Sitting drinking hot chocolate with a warm fire overlooking the ranges at sunset was a beautiful end to the day.

 One of the more popular places was Ormiston Gorge. Here national parks come with hot showers, free gas bbqs, and fresh drinking water all for the very low price of $6.60pp. We cruised off for some walks; dad and I up to a lookout while Dave ventured for the 4 hour walk where it was required to swim through the gorge to get to the other side. Close to freezing water up to the chest results in definite cold cramps... Dave came back to camp a little worse for wear.

With a few more gorge sightings under our belt Dave and I thought we’d go for the big gun, Palm Valley. This would have been difficult for dad so he ventured back to Alice and agreed to meet up in a few days. This track is only designed for 4WDs which did require a fair few creek crossing, very soft sandy patches, and the general 4WD angles and manoeuvres.  This was made a little more difficult because of a few days of late rain and the extra seasonal rainfall for the year. So there were deeper creek crossings, axle deep sandy patches, and steeper angles and manoeuvres. In the end we got to the camp ground not far from the actual Palm Valley. It was late in the afternoon so we had a relaxing end of the day but was soon interrupted by rain. It rained all night and all in the morning which meant the ranger was around requesting everyone to get out now because of more forecasted bad weather. So it was a horrible pack up in the rain and quick ‘let’s get out of hear’ jump in the car drive. The road was getting ripped up pretty quick as more rain meant more mud, boggy sand, and even higher creek crossings.  We got out in one piece which was expected in our troopy with 33” Maxis Muddy tyres at 20psi. So back to Alice we went.

Felling just generally low because of our failed attempted at Palm Valley, heading back to Alice didn’t help with pelting rain most of the way. Though, it is amazing what just one text message can bring. Our friends Tim and Nat were in Alice Springs! It was instant happiness. We met up at Macca’s over 2 Mates lunch meals and chatted about all our funny adventures. They recently went to Cape York and described it was wonderful and extremely stressful with their troopy handling the telegraph route mostly at a 45 degree angle. With a broken CV joint, countless scratches on the side of car because of the narrow trenches and angles the car was on, multiple tows in and out of creeks, and probably a million other things they fully completed the track. I say “hats off to them”, oh, we also felt very special when they brought a coconut all the way back from the Cape. That night, it was a mixture of wine and all brands of beer in a caravan park to catch up with well missed friends.