Alice Springs

It took us a day driving the almost 500 kilometers from Kings Canyon to Alice Springs. Although the landscape and vegetation in general remains more or less the same, we still found it impressive to look at the different nuances. Groves of desert oaks make room for paddocks with grazing cattle. The red soils is universal. It comes in many different shades though from the deep orange-brownish red of Ayers Rock to light ochre tones.

We were very lucky when we traveled the area. Just a few weeks before, heavy rain watered the arid land. We saw more green and blossoms than all the years before, locals told us.

MacDonnell Ranges

The next day, we explored the area west of Alice Springs. The MacDonnell National Park provides some spectacular sights. The top ones on our list were Ormiston Gorge, Ochre Pits, Ellery Creek Big Hole and Simpsons Gap. We skipped Standley Chasm because we felt that we could save the 12.00 AUD per adult entry fee having seen all the other great gorges and gaps in the MacDonnell Ranges. A ‘gap’ being a cut-through the mountain range created by millions of years of water flow.

At the end of the day when we arrived back in Alice Springs, we recapped the day and agreed the spots and walks here had been much more impressive than the creek walk in Kings Canyon.

A Secret Place

In the motel, where we stayed, there was an impressive picture of a rock or small mountain range right above the bed. It had caught my eye on day one, so I did some research including looking at satellite pictures on Maps and found the place. It was not too far from Alice Springs, but recommended for 4WD only. That sounded exactly like one of the places we wanted to explore.  When we arrived there and the sun started to set, we stood there in marvel. So were the gazillion of flies there, which met some of the very few tourists at that spot and made us wear our fly-nets again. Here is what we aww’ed at: