The Rambling Retirees: A Journey of Discovery & Learning

The Northern Territory (NT) Experience - 13 June to 15th July:

We finally crossed the State border into the NT.

NT Border Rest Stop

Coffee Time

How exciting - another State to explore - well, part of the State! We planned to stay 7 days in Alice Springs (AS) before exploring the West MacDonnell Ranges.

Our first night in the NT we camped at the Henbury Meteorite Nature Park - 15km of the Stuart Highway.

Enroute Henbury

A really fascinating area, and one of many meteorite craters to be found in the NT.

Henbury Meteorite Crater

Diana at Henbury

There was another couple camped here - Andrew and Jo - and we enjoyed a friendly chat around the campfire. Andrew and Diana enjoyed a laugh whilst climbing onto the back of one of the cars from the "Shitbox Rally" that had stopped in at the campsite.

Rally Car & Diana

This is a charity fundraising rally that started on the Gold Coast and travelled to the Cape and down to 'The Alice' in 10 days!!

Our next 7 days were spent at the G'day Mate van park. We needed to carry out some small repairs on "Ada" as well as washing clothes and bed linen after our dusty travels.

Whilst we were here we visited Anzac Hill (so windy that we nearly got blown away)

Cenotaph

Alice Springs

The information displayed here is exceptionally well done. This is one place well worth the visit if you are interested in Australian Military History and the conflicts we were involved in.

Our next port of call was the Old Telegraph Station. Although we didn't actually go in, we did however walk around the gardens and some of the trails.

The Olive Pink Botanic Gardens was another area we explored where we discovered different plants and their uses by the indigenous people of the region.

Plant use information

Another Plant Use

Information

The Path

We spent a really interesting 3 hours at the Old Ghan Railway and National Transport Museum. Here you can see transport from yester year to todays modern transport vehicles. The history of the Old Ghan Railway is also on display. Definitely an area not to be missed when visiting 'The Alice'.

Information

Still works

Early Pop-top Van

We also travelled out to the Napwerte Conservation Reserve to view the Ewaninga Rock Carvings (petroglyphs) of the Arrernte men.

Area Map

Rock formation

Historical Information

On our trip back to 'The Alice' we took a small detour off the main road and found ourselves on a section of the Finke Desert Race track.

Beside the track

Diana walking the track

10 to go

Memorial

We considered driving along part of it but changed our minds. Would have been interesting no doubt.

Kings Canyon & Rainbow Valley:

Leaving 'The Alice' on the 21st June we travelled south to the Ernest Giles track. This was supposedly a shorter route to Kings Canyon! This "short-cut" actually cut off about 140km from the drive along the bitumen. Although there was some spectacular scenery and it reduced the distance, it certainly didn't shorten the time, nor energy and concentration required, to drive it. The trip along the 100km of dirt/sand took 3.5 hrs.

The Ernest Giles Track

View along the track

Our total time to get to Kings Canyon was over 5hrs. By the bitumen was just over 4hrs! Lesson learned - no future "short-cuts"!

We decided to "spoil" ourselves whilst staying at Kings Canyon and booked 2 nights in a deluxe spa room at the Kings Canyon Resort --- and so worth it. The buffet breakfast each morning was superb, as was the meal at night.

View from the spa

Outdoor sitting area

Rim Walk start

Although we didn't tackle the Rim Walk (6km) and 500+ uneven steps to start with, we thoroughly enjoyed exploring the interpretive Kings Creek Walk and the Kathleen Springs Walk - a combined total of 6.5km but so much easier than climbing the steep Rim walk! The flora in Kings Creek was surprising with superb river gums and an amazing showing of winter wildflowers.

River Gums

Rock formation

The geology of the area also captivated our visual senses.

End of Track

There were no spectacular sunset or sunrise for us here as unfortunately it rained on both days. But, the spa bath after the walks was wonderful and we left KC totally refreshed and relaxed.

We had planned to travel to the Red Rock Gorge campground, in the West Macdonnell National Park, via the Mereenie Loop but after discussions with the local ranger we elected to go back to "The Alice" and out along the Larapinta Road. Our change of plan actually provided us with the opportunity to detour to the Rainbow Valley Conservation Reserve for a one night stay. So glad we did. The spectacular view of the sun setting over the valley was exhilarating and provided us with another beautiful memory of this wonderful country.