Palm Valley

Wow.  138 k's west of Alice Springs,  a nice drive out and then on the dirt roads again through Finke Gorge National Park about 4 k's from Palm Valley there is a little bit of serious 4wd. A little over 320 k's, a short drive!

The palm trees were counted by scientists in 1993 and there were 12,328, this was done again in 2008 and there were 9037 counted.  No Terradactyl's, Ron, but...…. if you listen you can hear something rustling in the trees.

There were two walks you could do, we did the longer one which was just shy of 5 k's with a lot of climbing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monument to Albert Namatjira

 

John Flynn's grave

 

The original stone on Flynn's grave was transported from the Devils Marbles which was a sacred women's site and they wanted it back.  There were discussions for over 20 years and the stone was returned and a replacement found.

 

Lots more photos, too many to put on here.

 

Just had the last of our Quandong pies which we bought in Copley on the way to Marree.

 

Julie and Tony

 

 

 

Upwey to Alice Springs 2nd - 8th September 2018

We left Upwey just after 8.30 am on Sunday 2nd September 2018 (Father's Day), easy travelling with stops for morning tea and lunch and then stopping late afternoon at Tailem Bends and yes we used a caravan park being the done thing in that area.  The caravan park mmmmm, found a better one further down the road the next day.

We stayed in Port Augusta the next night, a little further on than we meant to go but needed a supermarket.  Next morning we went back and through Crystal Brook, then Quorn, Hawker and onto Marree.

From the time we reached Hawker, we had no phone reception, which continued right through until just before Coober Pedy

We were told by the owners of the park that it was compulsory to be at the campfire for fivses and damper.  The damper was made in a camp oven and was lovely (I have the recipe)

Our campsite

 

This is the laundry

 

 

Sunset

 

We spent our first day driving to Lake Eyre on a dirt road, Tony had heard that there was water there in June, at the moment it is very dry.

 

A little hard to read but it is about Donald Campbell 

Just Me next to the sign

 

The next day we moved on from Marree via the Oodnadatta Track to William Creek, stopped for about 10 minutes then moved on.  Did take some photos.  The trip to William Creek and then turning left onto William Creek Road to Coober Pedy a long drive, all up it was about 380 k's of dirt road, we bumped along.

 

The above photos are all from William Creek.  The Ghan used to run along the Oodnatatta Track.

 

Spent the night in Coober Pedy and then the next night at Erldunda and arrived in Alice Springs this afternoon.  We are staying at the Temple Bar Caravan Park just outside of Alice.

 

The above photos are where we had morning tea at the Finke River

 

Temple Bar Caravan Park

 

That's all for now, it is late and I need to cook dinner.

 

Julie and Tony