Day 321 - 328 Alice Springs Part 3

This is really a continuation of the previous blog... we moved on up the Western MacDonnell's to Simpson Gap... a lovely spot...Stephen spotted this tree looking as if it was frozen!!
It's hard to believe that these river beds are just that, we find it difficult to imagine them full of water though we have seen many marks of walls and bridges to indicate some of the terrifying heights that the water get's to!
All peaceful when we were there...very calming...hard job this but someone has to do it!!!!!!
These trees just hang on...I know that the drought has been here to, but not for the time these trees have been around, and still the birds keep coming....

Day 321 - 328 Alice Springs Part 2

John Flynn has a resting place for his ashes protected by this boulder. The founder of the Royal Flying Doctors, is still well loved in the Center..there are stories everywhere about the man, with walks, trails and road named after him. There is even a story about the boulder, the original was from the Devil's Marbles, but this was returned to the rightful owners and one from the MacDonnell Ranges was put in it's place!!!!!
Stanley Chasm, very impressive, got there just in time for the light to be in the botom of the chasm, had a flash back to Echidna in the Bungle Bungles. 
It got quite narrow and difficult to climb so yet again Stephen went on on his own...
The bird life was getting beter all the time so I was quite happy to sit and watch....saw many finches and my first Western Bower Bird.
The finches just love the water, and come in from all directions

Day 321 - 328 Alice Springs Part 1

The original Alice Spring, which is actually not a spring at all but a water hole. This is found near the telegraph station of Stuart (renamed Alice Springs after the wife of the station master of the time). This was a great place to start our investigation of the Center, very well laid out and very informative as to the different uses the station had had over it's life time.
We were also lucky to be there when some of the local schools had a 2 day experience at the station. They started this idea in 1988 and each year the local school 5th graders come for a chance to do things the old ways. Here the boys are pumping up the water...
the girls are washing up after cooking biscuits and preparing dinner...Stephen and I got to try the Anzac Biscuits...they were great...
they were sleeping in the old barracks, doing the morse code, washing in an old copper with the fire blazing away below...they even had the old forge going!!! 
And to think that this was once the home to the Half Caste's..over 130 at the height of it's existence, makes you wander..well it makes me wander.....

Day 321 On the Way to Alice Springs.

On the road again......we are now beginning to see more vans heading North, and we are also beginning to see the same faces when we pull up at at the next resting place. The road to Alice is dotted with some interesting things, which just leads into what we saw in Alice... Nothing of that has any relevance to the picture above...which is Henberry craters, a bunch of meteorites came to earth around 4000 years ago and left their mark!!! Interesting, never walked round a crater before...
Most of us have herd of "The Cannonball Run", well this is the memorial to the 4 deaths at the inaugural race in 1994. Two competitors from Japan driving a Ferarri F40 and two officials died. 

Day 318 - 320 Kings Canyon

After spending a lovely few days at Uluru and in the company on H & H, (Julie a& Kevin), we started on the road again, but not far this time, just up the road to Kings Canyon. Here was another of those walks that left me for dead, the ridge top walk!!!! Incredible scenery with amazing birds and wildlife...the dingoes arrive every night around the van and you can't leave anything outside for it would be taken away into the bush......
while Stephen was off doing his thing, I went for a walk up King's Canyon Creek, I saw Mistletoebirds, with their red gleeming in the fresh crisp air..
Inredible rocks and trees that appear to be suspended in mid air...sometimes you can see their roots just dangling in the air and you can't believe that they are still up there on the cliff face.
On our way out, heading for Alice Springs, we did our last detour to this lovely part of our great country, to a small area known as Kathleen Spring. This was one of the loveliest walks so far. It was though an area that had been used to drove cattle into, with this water hole at the end, which they kept the beasts out of and pumped water up to them before taking them of for transportation to parts unknown....
The pump and some of the old fencing and gates are still in evidence. This was of course used by the Aboriginies way before the European invasion....they would wait for the animals to go to the water hole and when they left they would take the last animal for food..this way they did not stop the animals from coming back to the same water hole...pretty cleaver hey!!!!

Day 314 -317 Uluru Part 3 Olgas

Off to the Olgas, were we both started the Valley of the Winds walk, I made it to the first look out, saw a huge drop (and that means climb on the way back) so Stephen went on. We had heard that my dear friend David Heathcote had died, so we used this fabulous spot to say our goodbyes..as Stephen said in the Valley of the Wind the wind would get it to him faster!
In many respects I actually prefer the Olgas, they seem to have more character somehow.
When Stephen came back we went on a more leisurely stroll up the creek that runs out of the Olgas...very peaceful.

Day 314 -317 Uluru Part 2

We watched the ants climb the rock and decided that they were all idiots....most were climbing with no water and some even in thongs. Considering that over 35 people have fallen to their death it was a little daunting to say the least.
Never put a challenge in front of my man!!!!! He took a walkie talkie with him and I could hear the heart beats from my cosy position in the car at the base...this little ducky had more sense...but he did make it to the top and this picture proves it...well done Stephen...the view was fantastic...apparently!!
I also managed to get him to pose at the top of the chain on his decent....my vertigo suffered just by looking at him!