At The Farm

More Puzzling Gully Wildlife

2011-11-27T12:23:00.001+09:30

Yesterday My Aunty and I did a bit of bird watching together. We managed to find and identify quite a few birds. I haven’t had time so much just to stand around and watch birds and take photos lately so it was good to go out and find these interesting birds.

This is obviously not a bird. It is a shot i got a few weeks ago when it was really hot. Its a red necked wallaby hiding in the shade of the peppercorn trees, right next to our house.

A white faced heron down at our dam, these guys are at the dam all the time, eating yabbies i think.

An Australasian grebe. A very little water bird that spend a lot of time under water. They are tiny, about a 3rd of the size of a mallard duck.

This is a Striped Honeyeater

This is a gecko that eats all the bugs on our veranda at night

The superb wren male, looking good on the fence.

A newly identified star. This is a golden headed cisticola. An unusual name for a happy singing little bird.

A female common Koel.

Another new bird we saw is this broad billed flycatcher.

This is actually a very striking green bird, a Green Oriole. This is not the right angle but you can see some green. He would only sit against the bright white of the sky so it was hard to get the colour and exposure right.

A black faced cuckoo shrike, quite common.

A willy wagtail nest we found while looking in the peppercorn trees.

This one is a little friar bird. I have only ever seen noisy friar birds before.

www.Puzzlinggully.com.au

2011-11-02T21:28:00.001+09:30

Our farm and business finally have a website of their own. Today I started www.puzzlinggully.com.au. The website is currently just for our free range poultry selection, our Christmas turkeys. We expect the website to evolve and improve over the next few months/years into various other products that we will produce on farm.

Have a look at the new website and maybe like it on facebook if you are impressed

Cheers

Ben and Corinne

More Birdlife

2011-10-07T07:41:00.001+09:30

Yesterday i was cleaning up and painting our new/old kitchen buffet. It was a rainy, dreary day so i was under cover ion the old car port. The birds were going nuts in the weather and really put on a great show.

I had little flocks of Red Browed Firetails dancing about just metres from me, eating the seeding couch grass. Then i had a rainbow bee eater settle for a while on a fence across the yard, flying up into the air every now and again to catch an insect. The black shouldered kite was also about again, sitting over near the dairy where i got the pictures of him previously.

A great day for bird watching.

Red browed firetail, a type of finch.

A little flock of red brows, eating the very small grass seeds that are about at the moment.

Rainbow bee eater, they really do like to eat bees and other flying insects.

18 Week Mo Update

2011-10-04T10:40:00.001+09:30

Here are a few photos of Mo at 18 weeks to compare to his earlier puppy photos. He is doing pretty well so far, no paralysis ticks or snake bites yet. He is growing up and becoming better behaved but every now and then he reminds us that he is a puppy by destroying something or digging an enormous hole.

He is in love with the turkeys and likes to make sure they don’t fall out of there brooder, giving them a good lick to keep them inside.

Mo guarding the door step, he likes to wait here for us to come and feed or amuse him.

Mo, what a man.

Mo checking the temperature and turbidity of the dam.

A new cow bone Mo found down in a gully. He nearly got it all the way home then forgot about it and found something else to play with.

Puzzling Gully Wildlife

2011-10-03T12:12:00.001+09:30

We have a lot of wildlife on and around our farm. We see so many different birds and they even change with the seasons. We have kangaroos and wallabies, hundreds of bandicoots, rats and mice, brown antechinus, hares, brown snakes, also echidnas and many different types of birds.

I have not taken that many photos yet but I got a few on the weekend of some of the birdlife and an unfortunate brown antechinus that found our mouse trap. I have also seen two large brown snakes in the last week which is not brilliant, being the second most venomous snake worldwide.

A list of birds that i have seen so far and can remember are:

Superb fairy wrens – they keep our vegie garden bug free

Red backed fairy wrens, red browed firetails, double bar finches, pheasant coucals, galahs, sulfur crested cockatoos, pale headed rosellas, king parrots, spotted pardalotes, pied currawongs, grey crowned babblers, willie wagtails, magpie larks, magpies, crows, grey butcher birds, brown falcons, wedge tail eagles, black shouldered kites, nankeen kestrels, kookaburras, crested pigeons, peaceful doves, quail, wood ducks, white spoonbill, cormorants, plumed whistling ducks, hoary headed grebes, mallards, herons. This is just some of them and the ones i know. We have some honey eaters which i have not identified yet and also maybe some emu wrens too.

Bandicoot in our cage trap. We have the trap to catch rats and foxes etc but the bandicoots are always in there. They are everywhere and eat anything. They are marsupials and i think carnivorous.

Dead brown antechinus, in our house and caught by a mouse trap. Looks quite mousey but is large, longer nose and has little sharp carnivore teeth, not big incisors like rodents.

Antechinus teeth

Black shouldered kite

Male superb fairy wren, beautiful little guy that hangs around with a bunch of little brown and white girls. These guys are very numerous, always busy and eat a lot of bugs.

More House Improvements

2011-09-27T15:21:00.001+09:30

So our house is quite old and run down. It has survived many years though, so it must be tough. Like trying to hammer the nails into the floor to sand and polish the floors. We had to use a small sledge hammer and there was a lot of swearing and bruised fingers, the wood is all very old hardwood and almost impossible in some places to hammer a nail into.

We have also been cleaning up some old furniture we have bought or found at the farm. We want to have older more unique furniture to suit our house which is definitely unique in a bent, old sort of a way. We have been sanding, paint stripping, reinforcing and nailing and painting. The old furniture is coming up great though and is really starting to add to the feeling in the house.

The polishing of the wooden floors was a great success and we are really happy with them. We would not, however, polish wooden floors again ourselves, we would pay someone else to do it. It is a disgusting dusty hard job and is quite difficult to get right.

The old wooden floors, sanded smooth and painted with Cabot’s water based gloss floor paint. We used a lambs wool mop to apply it. I cut in around the edges and Corinne mopped, she is the one with the painting skills. The improvement is amazing.

Corinne mopping on the floor paint, the end of a hard dusty week. We actually went to a wedding up in Palm cove, NQLD at the end of this week which was a nice break.

The dining and kitchen with new white walls and polished floors. The dust from the sanding though was very difficult to get off the new white walls.

Someone put bare copper pipes on the wall in our shower. A few coats of special metal rust kill paint and the pipes now look more elegant.

A simple wooden frame around our toilet window adds to the room and makes it feel less like a jail cell. Yet to be painted

This is an old home made wooden cabinet we found in a shed. We sandined, cleaned and repaired the cabinet and then painted it with the floor polish. The cabinet is huge and adds a great amount of storage.

polished floors, joins in the floor where there are holes and a lot mess.

This is a little stool we found at an Op shop. Sanded and cleaned with a new coat of paint, a great $5 bargain.

Half a cow

2011-09-27T14:52:00.001+09:30

When we first got to the farm we had the idea that we really wanted to start buying basic food items in bulk. We wanted to save time and fuel driving into Toowoomba and be able to put a meal together without having to go to the shops all the time. Part of this is stuff like rice, flour, muesli, cans of tomatoes etc. We also bought ourselves a second hand deep freezer, a 350 litre one. With that in mind we rang a local butcher and ordered ourselves a half a beast or half a cow. This is a lot of meat, the half cow weighs about 130 kgs and once it was all trimmed and cut up we got about 85 kgs of actual meat and a lot of dog bones for Mo. So we have a freezer full of beef and all for about $10 a kg rather than the usual exorbitant price of meat.

The meat quality and taste has been great and we have all the cuts including a lot of mince and sausages. We have also been buying other meat too so we don’t have to have beef every night.

20 kgs of mince, all the rough cuts are turned into mince or sausages.

setting up our table to bag up all the meat into meal sized portions, you need a lot of plastic bags for that much meat.

Mince portions

Roasts, we have been turning some of these into billtong.

Big bag of T-bone steaks

Roasts, sausages, meat, meat, meat.

Bones for Mo, so exciting

A freezer full of meat

The Tractor

2011-09-26T12:42:00.001+09:30

Back in June we bought a tractor for the farm. We have a lot of grass and logs and dirt to cut, move adjust etc and some things are just too heavy to do by yourself or even 2 of you.

So we got an Apollo 5504 which is a 50hp tractor with a 4 way front end loader. We also got a post hole digger and slasher and a few other bits too.

The tractor has been indispensible so far in clearing some of the long, rank grass, lantana, logs and building gardens etc.

The tractor is great and not too hard to drive and adjust things on, though there are about 20 different levers and it needs a lot of grease.

The tractor being delivered and the guy showing me what all the levers do. The slasher attached to the back.

Dawn tractor

Side view

Other side view with grader blade attached

Destroying the old dog shed, an arduous task completed in a few minutes with the tractor

The front end loader ripping the shed apart

Carrying a log away from the shed.

The House Renovations

2011-09-26T12:40:00.001+09:30

Hello,

After our return from the Alice, we moved to the farm. We wanted to do some renos and a bit of a clean up on the house before we moved in. We spent the next 5 weeks of quite a cold winter sleeping in our tent, in one of the carports. The weather was invigorating and we were both wearing a lot to bed including beanies and had a couple of blankets and doonas etc.

The house is an old workers cottage that has been edited many times over the years and is around 100 years old. It is wood on old tree stumps and has luckily survived without any termite damage. The house though is old and looks it in many parts. There has been a lot of movement in the stumps and so many parts of the house like the walls, windows floors etc are bent and curved. This off course only adds to the character of the house.

We have nice hard wood floors under our old stained smelly carpet so we planned to sand and polish those and paint all our VJ walls and ceilings.

The renovating of the house and the cleaning up of the farm and garden have turned out to be very rewarding but also extremely hard work and very time consuming. Everything has taken us longer than we thought and we have learnt so many new skills getting everything done.

A view of the kitchen and dining, note sickly yellow/cream walls, lino and dirty carpet, all remedied now.

The kitchen looking into the office.

The office, not a bad room except for the carpet

Kitchen, dirty roof and luckily ceiling fans throughout the house

Dining looking into the lounge. The carpet is gone now and the walls are painted, Antique white USA – a type of white, of which there are many.

The lounge with 3 patches of white we were looking at, all quite white.

Corinne, sugar soaping the walls pre paint.

Sanding down the walls to reveal a previous pretty blue/green paint.

Corinne on her trusty ladder developing her upper body strength with a lot of cleaning

We have a lot of beautiful old metal locks on the doors which we have removed and are buffing up.

Dirty carpet and trusty leather gloves, essential for not destroying your hands on all the nails and splinters and broken glass and other sharp stuff

A painted door lock in need of a good grinding and buffing

The gorgeous lino that was under the carpet. Under the lino is masonite and 4000 nails

The lino, quite old i would think.

Corinne painting the ceilings in the office. That is the roof access hole. I spent a day up there with the heat and rat poo insulating the roof.

Mo

2011-09-22T07:54:00.001+09:30

This is our first blog post we have done in 3 months or so. We moved back to Queensland from Alice Springs back in June. We had an uneventful 3000km drive back from Alice. The scenery was great, drier this time, lots of Brolgas and country pubs.

We have since done soo much and been so busy and had so little time and such poor internet that we have not done any blogging.

We are a bit more settled now and have a little bit more time and so we have started to edit photos again and write blogs.

We spent the first 5 weeks back in Queensland at our farm, Puzzling Gully, renovating the house and cleaning up around the house. The house is about 100 years old and needs a lot of TLC. There is a lot to write about the house and the garden etc but firstly we have to mention the latest addition to our small family.

MO. Mo is our 4 month old Black Labrador puppy. We got him when he was 6 weeks old from up in Toowoomba. He came from a nice looking place out at Highfields. He was a friendly, little, relaxed fellow right from the start and has since blossomed into a real little character. We have been very firm with him and he is quite well behaved and learning every day to be a super well behaved little man.

He loves his food, walks and swims in the dam and he also likes sampling any type of poo he can find, and there is a lot on a farm.

He is a great little guy and we look forward to him growing up and having a great time with us on the farm.

Mo, When we first got him at 6 weeks he was a little fat round 3.6kg ball. Now he is a lean 16 kg poo eating machine.

Mo’s first bath in a bucket, so unimpresed

Mo, surveying his territory

Mo’s second bath, in the laundry tub, he now bathes in the dam.

Cute and perhaps a little scared

Mo is already really good at fetching stuff, as per his breed. He is a happy little guy and completely useless as a guard dog as he loves everyone he meets, strangers or not.

Palm Valley 3–Back at the campsite.

2011-06-22T16:49:00.001+09:30

On our second night out at PV we got to the communal firepit early in the arvo and set up our wood for a big afternoon fire, a few drinks and some nibbles.

We made sure we were on the right side of the fire so we wouldn’t get smoked and had a great time, keeping warm and imbibing refreshments.

The girls got a little pissy and tried a few more planks around the place. We had a great sunset and a very cool night. We even cooked our pasta over the open fire in the billy. The girls had some marshmallows and some little kids came over with their parents and had some too.

Corinne demonstrating why planking is hard and dangerous, if you are in the wrong spot.

Better than a veranda or a highrise.

The girls heating up their feet at the firepit.

Corinne with a billy full of cold beer

The moon, early riser

Our fire, nice smelling Eucalypt smoke.

The sun setting over the trees and campsite

The moon rising over the red hills, those hills in the background are where the Mpaara walk is from the first blog.

Kaz and Corinne, hammering out another amazing plank on an unsuspecting rock

Palm Valley 2

2011-06-19T18:10:00.001+09:30

On day 2 of our PV adventures we drove out to the actual Palm Valley to do the walk through the valley. The drive from camp site to the valley is very rough, with sections of sand, river rocks, rock and steep grades. The drive is about 4kms and takes about 30-40 minutes. There are various river crossings and lots of great scenery.

We stopped along the way a few times to check out the cycad palms as well as other pretty creek spots. Kaz performed another impromptu plank on a fallen palm, we made it to the valley but we broke our trailer electric connection of the back of the car in a deep hole. With some wire and a few tools we connected it back on and it looks very tough now too.

The actual walk through the valley is brilliant. There was lots of water in the creek, we even had to wade through the creek in one spot and the red cabbage palms tower above you along the way with the fronds shaking in the wind. The day was pretty cold, but we warmed up after a few climbs along the way.

The walk takes you about 2 kms up the valley and then you hike up into the hills onto the plateau above the area and hike back to the car. Most of the walk is stunning, with only a few dreary bits right at the end.

Our trusty Pathfinder parked on solid rock at Cycad gorge. We stopped here for a look and got blasted by an arctic wind that blew down the valley. Kaz explored and found herself a good planking spot.

The girls and their car, all freezing.

Kaz…………..

Kaz again, from further away, still resting on her palm.

The walk through the valley is suddenly and bizarrely interrupted by bits of man made path. We hypothesised the point of this, maybe wheel chair access but then the path would stop again and become very rough.

A section of tall palms, blocking out the sun, beautiful blue skies but very cool.

A nice shady bend in the river lined on one side by the Palms.

Me and Kaz, resting in a rocky hole in the valley wall.

A Palm, from a different angle

Kaz, nearly back at the car and in need of another rest.

The view from the cliffs above the valley where we had walked earlier.

A great spot.

Palm Valley–The 2nd expedition

2011-06-17T11:12:00.001+09:30

On the recent long weekend we drove out to Palm Valley with our workmate Kazza for a second look and camping trip.

About 5 months ago when we first got to Alice we tried to go camping out at PV but we had to leave due to flooding from cyclone Yasi.

In the lead up to our weekend off the weather was predicted to be very cold, around zero to thirteen with drizzle. This is not great camping weather. Come Saturday morning, the sky was blue, the sun was out, the drizzle was no where to be seen. It was however, very cold. It is winter though, in the desert so this is to be expected.

There was even more water in the Finke river this time and there were a few fun crossings. The tracks out there were also a lot more worn by all the campers and there were a lot of deep sandy spots and the track was quite rough. We made it to camp though and found ourselves a quiet corner. The campsite was loaded with people, mostly oldies with heavily kitted out 4wd’s and trailers.

After setting up, we drove back out of the National park, which is not far, and collected ourselves a heap of firewood to keep the night a bit warmer. We got out the saw and cut up some good sized logs and filled the roof-rack with good old gum tree.

On the way back to camp we stopped and did the 2 hour, 5km Mpaara walk.

This takes you out the back of a large sandstone ridge and brings you to a lookout in front of the Amphitheatre. The views are stunning and reminded us of Monument valley in the US.

This is one of the best walks and views we have done in the NT and probably beats King Canyon.

The Corkwood Grevilleas are flowering at the moment, in winter.

Another great Ghost gum

The first palms we had seen on the trip – The red cabbage palm, found only in Finke Gorge National Park.

These light blue/white bushes contrast nicely with the bright red rock and blue skies.

The girls with the valley we had just climbed in the back.

The valley we walked up to get to the lookout.

Suddenly you come up to a lookout and see this.

Click on the photo to see a larger version, a beautiful view. We climbed down into this valley to get back.

Finke River Camping

2011-06-06T19:28:00.001+09:30

On Saturday we packed up some stuff again and drove out for a quick overnight camp at the 2 mile bush camping site on the Finke River. This spot is a great, beautiful spot and we were the only ones there.

We did some great four wheel driving in a lot of deep sand and some rocks. We found ourselves a nice spot near some trees for shade and spent the afternoon relaxing and watching the birds and the waterhole.

It was another beautiful warm day and it felt more like spring than the first month of Winter. We finished the night with another awesome NT sunset and a well deserved nights sleep after another goodbye party on the Friday night. We were only moderately harassed by mice which was a pleasant surprise.

Our spot by the Finke, soft sand, great views, lots of wildlife.

Corinne, finishing off our meal of mashed potato, sausages from Milner meats and salad.

Sunset

Not Quite N’Dala Gorge

2011-06-05T17:01:00.001+09:30

Last weekend we drove out along the East Macs to have a look at N’Dala Gorge. The NT parks website said the road was closed but I had been told by a local that it was fine.

The drive out East was great although lot dryer than previously. The cold weather and lack of rain is now making the grass a lot more brown, the spinifex is now yellow and the rivers are back to be only sand.

We got out to the entrance to N’Dala and it said the road was closed. We met a guy there in a Nissan Patrol and he said you can get a certain distance but then the rivers are too full and boggy to get across. So even though we now haven’t had rain for a few months, the rivers out in the East Macs are still flowing.

We thought we would give it a go and drove on, along the closed road. Corinne started to get a bit nervous about another ill fated ‘Benny’ adventure, but I assured her we would be fine, even if we got bogged it would be a good experience.

We came to our first and last river and valiantly drove around a very rough steep bank and some soft sand. We found some more soft sand and then some boggy sand in the river. Then we turned around and drove back to the bank and parked. We would have a picnic on this side of the river.

We might have got across this river but it was pretty wide, 100 metres and wet and we would have had to drop the tyre pressure etc.

We had a lovely relaxing picnic on our rug on the sandy banks and enjoyed great weather and beautiful scenery, no N’Dala gorge though.

The Gorge was further down this valley but we decided not to cross the river. This isn’t a bad place to stop and relax anyway.

The Pathfinder, parked on some harder grassy sand.

Corinne, soaking up the rays on what was quite a cold but sunny day.

Driving home from Ormiston Gorge

2011-06-01T11:19:00.001+09:30

On the drive home from Ormiston gorge, we found a small sign on the side of the rd – 2 mile camping area Finke River. We have not read about this sign but it looked good and actually pointed tot the beautiful river area we had seen at from a lookout earlier.

The track was rough and quickly developed into deep soft sand. We switched our trusty Pathfinder into 4WD low and carried on through the sand, arriving at the river. There was a large amount of water and rushes and birds everywhere. You can camp anywhere along the river and there are no sites or facilities, just a nice sandy river bank and lots of shady trees.

The campsite is one of the best we have seen out here. No fences, toilets, BBQ’s, bus loads of kids, etc, just camping a by a river in the bush.

There was a huge nest with a couple of kites in it. They were a bit shy and flew off across the river, a great spot for them too.

We may visit this little Gem this weekend as it is our second last free weekend before we leave central Australia and return to Queensland.

The Finke River – Looking towards Glen Helen gorge in the West Macs. Clear cold water.

One of the Kites preening

Big birds, hunting around the river.

The pair after they left there nest and flew over the other side of the river.

This little kestrel flew over to their tree as soon as the kites left.

The nest, about a metre wide, hard to tell from the photo.

The pathfinder, doing brilliantly in some deep sand, this is a harder spot by the river bank.

The mountains in the distance.

Ormiston Gorge

2011-05-29T21:59:00.001+09:30

One of the best spots we have come across in central Australia is Ormiston Gorge. Ormiston is set in the West macs and is about 150kms west of Alice. Ormiston Creek cuts through the macs and eventually joins up with the Finke River. There is an almost permanent waterhole at Ormiston and the gorge is a lot bigger than some of the other gorges and gaps in the range.

The walls of the gorge are many hundreds of metres high and the whole area is stunning. There are a couple of good walks in the area, we did the Ghost gum walk. This climbed up and around a small portion of the gorge and gave a good aerial view. We wanted to do the longer pound walk but is involved swimming through a lot of cold water and we weren’t set up for that clothes wise, bags, cameras etc. The ghost gum walk said we would have to swim too but we were able to walk along the rocks beside the river to get by without getting wet.

Corinne actually went for a swim in the fish infested water at lunch time which was very brave. Not only did she take on the small man eating fish but the water was also pretty freezing.

The entire gorge is amazing and you could spend days just exploring the various parts of the large gorge and surrounding cliffs. I would probably rate Ormiston as a top 3 spot around Alice Springs due to its size, water and general beauty.

Corinne surveying the first large pool at Ormiston.

Looking back towards the start of the gorge

Looking deeper into the gorge with the sun unfortunately in an awkward position

The view of the gorge from near where we had some lunch. This is not really even the gorge, it starts around the corner to the right and goes for a long way.

The Red bluff has a great lookout on top of it that is reached via the Ghost Gum walk. You can just see a tiny bit of metal protruding fro the rocks at the very top of the cliff.

Redbank Gorge

2011-05-25T14:28:00.001+09:30

Redbank gorge is another gap in the West Macdonald range which runs in an East to West direction from Heavitree gap in Alice Springs. Waters have carved their way through the range in many spots, like Heavitree, Redbank, Ormiston, Glen Helen, Ellery Creek etc.

Redbank has a virtually permanent waterhole but when we visited it the water was really starting to dry up. The central Australian rivers and ponds are teeming with water life and when the water disappears then the life dies.

As we walked into the gorge along the sandy riverbed we started to get a sniff of the death around the pools in the gorge. We came across diminishing pools with hundreds of fish sharing a very small amount of water. Sooner or later these guys run out of oxygen and food and die. When some die then the water quality drops quickly and the rest die too.

This all sounds terrible but is just part of the natural cycle of things in these dry parts.

The fish are all very pretty and it is quite interesting to be able to see them so close up. The actual gorge waterhole was getting really smelly and had a lot of dead fish in it. It is still quite large but the colour is changing and it is becoming an opaque green colour.

The gorge was very pretty as usual and was interesting to visit.

Collection of fish in a small pond about a metre wide.

Dead fish about hand sized in the main waterhole.

Corinne standing in front of the main waterhole. There was a dead kangaroo nearby which really added to the atmosphere of the area.

Dead fish floating in the main waterhole.

A nice panorama of the the gorge taken from the waterhole. The sun was behind me and a so this was the best angle to see the gorge. The actual gap in the range is only a metre wide in a lot of spots.

Redbank Gorge Camping

2011-05-21T20:03:00.001+09:30

We camped at Redbank gorge this week when we had a few days off. We were going to camp at Ormiston gorge but the campsite was quite bad and full. We drove out to Redbank which is only 15 minutes further along the West Macs.

There are two campsites to choose from, the woodland campsite on the flats and the ridgetop campsite which overlooks the flats and hills. We chose a nice private spot at the ridgetop campsite and only shared the whole place with one other couple.

The weather was great for our 2 days off, with unseasonably warm weather and blue skies. There was some controlled burning being done nearby though so there was a fair bit of smoke at times, but mostly on the horizon.

We were once again surrounded by an army of mice once night fell and easily saw 40-50 mice at a time. They were in our shoes, running over our feet and trying to climb the sides of the tent.

We had a relaxing afternoon, reading, snoozing and visiting Redbank gorge itself. Next day after a fine brekkie we packed up and drove back to Ormiston Gorge to check out the gorge and do some walking and swimming.

Our little secluded spot up on the ridge at Redbank gorge cliff top campsite.

The sun setting behind a tree and a haze of smoke

The West Macs with Redbank gorge hidden in the gap on the left, smoke over the hills.

Our stoney, mouse filled campsite and tent nestled between the bushes.

Dingos on the Finke River

2011-05-20T20:16:00.001+09:30

Last week we had a few days off so we drove out to the west Macs and camped at Redbank Gorge. On the way home we stopped at a lookout near Glen Helen Gorge. Whilst surveying the beautiful scenery of the Finke River we caught site of a large Dingo Trotting about.

The big fella looked to be about 30-40 kgs and was dark orange. We were a long way off and I only had my normal lense on my camera so i wasn’t able to get any close up pics. The area was amazing and we found probably the best camping site we have seen in central Australia.

The view of the Finke River from the lookout. The Finke River is one of the largest rivers in Central Australia and eventually disappears into the Simpson desert.

Dingo – We started howling to get the Dingos attention. It workd for a few seconds and then we were spotted as imposters and the dingo ran off.

The finke river, a great little spot in the West Macs.

The Ernest Giles Road.

2011-05-14T17:21:00.001+09:30

While we were driving back from Kings Canyon along the Ernest Giles road we came across some great birds.

There are lots of beautiful birds in central Australia but as always you have to be fast to get a good pic or have your big lense on before they fly away.

We have seen so many beautiful raptors (birds of prey) whilst driving out west. We have never bothered or been able to stop and get a good pic. Whilst driving along the Ernest Giles Rd we stopped to a get a few nice pics a a brown Falcon. The Raptors often sit in dead trees by the side of the road and wait for road kills or scurrying mice etc.

We also came across a very rare and difficult to find parrot. The Major Mitchel Cockatoo. These guys are hard to see and find as they are dry land nomadic birds and do not stay put for long, but instead follow the rain and the food, like seeding trees, grasses etc.

We drove into a flock of the cockatoos feeding on a desert She-Oak (Casurina). They are amazingly striking birds with stunning white wings, pink chests and splashes of red and orange on the crest and wings. People come on tours around Australia just to try and spot these guys.

The drive home was a good time, we saw some great birds and drove on another famous Central Australian track – The Ernest Giles Road.

The start of the Ernest Giles road, named after a famous explorer. Not really that rough or exciting, but we have seen and done it.

Red, rough dirt with some sand too.

Major Mitchel Cockatoos, named after the explorer.

A brown Falcon, perching on a rock by the side of the road, a handsome fellow.

Stone and Wood–Kings Canyon 3

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There is a lot of beautiful plants and geological features to be seen in and around Kings Canyon. Here are a selection.

Dead tree, probably a ghost gum, daytime moon and perfect blue sky as a back drop

Ghost gum, growing out of the rock above the canyon

Grevillea wickhamii, Holly Grevillea.

The sharp spiny leaves that give the Holly Grevillea its name

swirling colours and textures in the sandstone walls of the Kings creek walk

Sandstone walls, gum trees and blue skies

A patch of water on the Kings creek walk, in the bed of Kings Canyon

Kings Canyon–The Rim Walk

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There are a few walks you can do at Kings Canyon, but by far the best and the only one really is the Rim walk. This takes you from the canyon mouth, up to the rim and you walk right around to the other side. The start is steep, quite steep, with lots of little stop spots for all us people that have issues breathing after 10 steps. You can see from the first pic that they don’t muck about, you just go straight up to start with. Eventually when you get to the top though things flatten out and you start to appreciate the size and grandeur of the canyon. This is no Grand canyon, nothing like it, but it is still impressive and very beautiful from many angles.

The usual central Australian colours of ochre red, blue sky, green trees set off the canyon beautifully. The odd white barked ghost gums stands out starkly in the rocky environment. There are many places where you can fall a good 300 metres to your death if you so please and there are no rails or boundaries of any sort.

Halfway along the walk you have to cross down into a smaller canyon and then up again via stairs. Down in the canyon though you can visit the garden of Eden. This is a not a biblical spot and there was no apple tree. The garden is a couple of great water holes carved into the rock by heavy water flows over the years. The water holes are surrounded by sheer smooth cliffs back up to the canyon rim. There were multiple hungry spinifex pigeons by the water holes and lots of people tempted to swim in the very cold water.

The walk was amazing with so many cool views and scenery. It is actually hard to encompass the views into a photo, panorama or not.

The start of the walk, straight up, with a few false peaks along the way to disappoint you.

Brilliant Ghost Gum, blue sky, red rock and daytime moon

Corinne and Kaz, on the edge of a 300 metre cliff. The other side of the canyon is in the background.

Corinne and I, again on the edge.

The sheer smooth cliffs on the other side of the canyon, many walkers gathering.

Corinne sneaking over the edge, Kaz, strangely brave.

Kaz standing very close too or on a piece of sandstone that will one day fall, probably with a stupid tourist standing on it waving. Kaz was lucky and is still with us.

The ledge on the left and a view of the cliffs opposite.

The bridge crossing a smaller canyon near the garden of Eden.

Panoramas of the mouth of the canyon

and looking down the canyon.

Kings Canyon–The beginning

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Over the Easter weekend we had 5 days off. We had from Friday to Tuesday off for Easter and Anzac day. We thought we had better take advantage of this so we took ourselves and our newly adopted Child, Kaz-aaa to the canyon.

Kings Canyon is South and West of Alice Springs. There are a number of ways you can get there. There is the Mereenie loop off Larapinta drive, there is the Ernest Giles rd off the Stuart Highway and there is the Luritja Rd off the Lasseter Highway. The first two roads are rough dirt roads and are shorter than the Luritja rd whioch is bitumen but a lot longer and travels quite near to Uluru.

We took the Mereenie loop road to Kings Canyon. You need to buy a $3.50 permit for this road which helps to pay for stuff, I don’t know what but it does. We set off on a lovely warm saturday morning after we have bought our timtam slushies from Gloria Jeans coffee.

The Mereenie loop was supposed to be one of the best drives in the NT. The drive is good, very rough, a lot of corrugations but it is not amazing. There are some nice cliffs and bluffs to the left and the area is very much central Australia. It was really like a vibrating massage from giant dinosaur in Disneyland.

We stopped off at Hermansburg for a toilet and a drink. Kaz hit the toilets and made us all proud and we checked out the local supermarket. There was a small (maybe 1kg) puppy in the store under an isle chomping on a dead mouse, for sure full of rat bait. The Jack Russell type puppy was cute in a skanky way and will certainly be dead soon from rat bait or malnutrition.

We made it to the Kings Canyon Resort in the early arvo and set up camp, right next to the Shell petrol station. It was not the best site, which were all taken but it was shady at the time.

A quick photo and vibration stop on the Mereenie loop. The road had been recently graded in some areas, while in other it had not. At one bump the very heavy 50kg esky levitated for a second or two, as did Kaz and Corinne. The suspension on the overloaded car held up well.

Kaz-aa. Wrapped up in her exotic snuggy, similar to the one her dad owns?? We made ourselves comfortable next to the other campers who spent a lot of time in their cars. We managed to move the next day to better surrounds.

Corinne, sucking down some more suds, protecting the esky from marauding corgie cross dingoes.

‘C’ is for Corinne. It can also designate which toilet block you are at.

A view of the Mereenie loop.

Rainbow Valley–Final

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We managed to get some nice shots of the Sandstone bluffs both during the afternoon and at sunset. The colours and the light change so much with the time of day so i have put in a few different pics.

Moon rise over a small sandstone monolith

Giant Alien shadows in the last light of the day

Cooking dinner at our campsite with a nice view in the background

Dawn, a quick photo in the cold

Afternoon panorama of the sandstone bluffs

Sunset from the mud pans