Alice and the Macdonnell Ranges

I love being in Alice! Tonight will be our fifth night here, its also my fifth visit to Alice Springs. Its rocky and dusty and a little bit rough around the edges and that's what I love about it.

Unfortunately our timing didn't coincide with Elly also being in Alice, however we are staying at Jane and Glenns (well actually over the road at the neighbours who are away because not much room and Jane and Glenns for the van). The last time I saw Jane and Glenn here was 15 years ago. Since then, between us there is 5 additional children. They have 3 beautiful daughters; Ruby (16), Rani (14) and Evie (12).

We arrived just in time for the Alice Show, one of the highlights of the Alice Springs calendar, and certainly the Marshall family's. Like the Royal Easter Show but with an original dusty, rural atmosphere, which I don't think Sydney Olympic Park provides. The girls and Glenn had multiple entries in the art, photography and cooking sections and collected many prizes. Fairy floss, livestock, dagwood dogs, showbags, dodgems.... we had it all!! Here are the kids, and Cem, enjoying the dodgems:

Our arrival into Alice was via the West Macdonnell Ranges and I have to say that my feet were a bit itchy to get onto the Larapinta Trail again... The previous night we had one of our most scenic camp spots of all at Tyler Pass Lookout, western end of West Macdonnell Ranges National Park; elevated and 360 degree views, but very exposed and windy. Here we are around the campfire. In the far background is Gosse Bluff.

Then a great day heading into Alice and stopping at the various landmarks, most of which I knew from the hiking I've done here, but great to share again with the family. Redbank Gorge was our favourite (but no camera with us!). Showed Cem the phone box in Glen Helen that I called him from while he was in Turkey doing Army service. Here's a photo of Simpsons Gap.

We also got the Pajero serviced in Alice as per its service schedule. This was the 15000km service, so a bit novel to do it here instead of Sydney! We visited the Old Telegraph Station which was well worth it. Cem also enjoyed watching some World Cup with Glenn. Otherwise Cem also then picked up some bug and was flat out on his back for a whole day. Had a picnic dinner with Jane at the Claypans as the sunset.

And the other thing was climbing the mountain at the back of the Marshalls house which gave a fantastic view. Sol became the mountaineer with 3 summits in total. You can actually see our caravan parked over the road, and the Marshall house opposite. That small spec on the road is Kai waving at us. And looking out the back of the mountain range you can see the mysterious Pine Gap off in the distance, no one knows what goes on there. Notice in the photo below the place we have our caravan parked. This is a family of 5 and they live in 3 'dongas', have a central shed type building which is their kitchen and lots of shade sails over their outdoor living areas. Interesting lifestyle.

Tomorrow is Kai's birthday. We will head out to the East of Alice, East Macdonnells; Trephina Gorge, Ross River, Rubys Gap and Gemtree on the Binns track. We will come back here for the night and then the following day we will finally tackle the Tanami and depart on the contentious Tanami Track across the Tanami Desert. This will be 4 or 5 days, we'll be totally out of range. Its a total of 1077km (753 unsealed) and quite remote. So the next post we will hopefully have crossed over into WA and will be at, or past, Halls Creek. We are also looking forward to it getting warmer from this point on, nights have been freezing here although days beautiful. Dad, please don't worry, will call you as soon as we can!

FOOTNOTE: Today was Kai's birthday and the day was much as described above except we didn't make it to Rubys Gap. Kai was pretty happy because we had croissants for breakfast, birthday cake for lunch, pizza for dinner and lots of lollies and chocolates in between.....
But the other amazing thing was that while looking for a reasonable and sunny breakfast stop, we bumped into my dear old (school) friends Leanne and Ross Murray and family (who I hadn't seen for a while) at Jessies Gap, just outside of Alice and so it was lovely to be able to catch up and share our birthday croissant brekky with them. They have followed a similar path as us from Sydney.

Some more shots of the day; Trephina Gorge, the old gaol at Arltunga historic town and Kai with his birthday cake (have you ever heard of travelling around central Australia in a pair of floral braces*!?*......)