Peta and Lachlan

The Final Leg.

2011-06-22T21:10:00.000+09:30

After sadly waving goodbye to South WA which is quietly spectacular, we headed to Norseman and the start of the Eyre Hwy - AKA the Nullarbor.

It was a long way to go....

First nights stop was at this very pretty place.

Lachlan instructed me on the precise art of marshmallow toasting - I'm now a convert.

Despite the warning signs the wildlife escaped the dangers of the Rav, and the Rav escaped further violation.

It was a really long road. Everyone deserves a little shut eye. Even if it means wearing their girlfriends eye mask.

Bye Bye WA - Hello friendly South Australians.

The great Australian Bight made for some spectacular scenery.

And large numbers of Southern Right Whales flapping about with their baby calves.

A little town in SA worthy of a lunch stop.....

The right direction for the Rav to have his own ears.

Despite our Roo fear we risked a spot of sunset driving. Surely they are all up at the flooded Lake Eyre.

After retreating into a cabin from the gale force gusts on our final night, we awoke to a flat tyre....

Lucky the instructions advised Lachy not to get "bodily" under the elevated car....

Whoops - turns out we had let the tyre be pretty much shredded... The little wires were poking through.... A very relevant reason not to overload your soft wheel drive.

Ah, back to Victoria and rain. But how pretty are rainbows?

A brief stop in at Murrayville and my old childhood home.

After travelling through the NT, WA, SA and Vic, why not pop into NSW for a beer when nearly home?

Sadly we say farewell to the Rav, and more importantly our wonderful friends and family in Aus. Next stop is France. Please come and visit!

Southern Western Australia, East of Esperance

2011-06-17T20:39:00.000+09:30

Firstly, wow. Esperance is a little village that opens the door to a beautiful wonderland. Just 80Km east of Esperance is Cape le Grande.

Home in Cape le Grande is Lucky Bay. I was lucky to be warm here.

This is a fine example of New-Newtonian fluid. The water table is clearly a little too close to the surface at this point. I stood here while Peta took photos, below, as you can see, it just sinks.

If you think it looks beautiful in the photo, try being there. The waves were the clearest blue I've seen in a wave.

The camp ground was just a little to the right of this photo. Lucky Bay is somewhere I'd visit again soon.

This is called the whistling rock. It didn't really "whistle" when we were there, but you could hear the sound of the waves rebounding off the rock. Standing in between the two felt like watching the waves in stereo.

Here I am about to conquer this summit at Frenchman's Peak.

It was quite a steep incline....

Each point we reached was pretty spectacular. This cave was nearly at the top.

Clearly a few other people had been here before us.....

I can fly!

Pretty awesome views over the islands. This place is amazing - you should go.

Southern Western Australia, West of Esperance

2011-06-17T11:30:00.000+09:30

Western Australia has clever little signs to remind us to look after our environment. Even though I had a creepy dream the other day where I picked up a couple of bird eggs from a nest which then hatched and then just as quickly turned into two succulent chicken breasts, this sign is still very cute.

Tweet Tweet!

This is elephant rocks, wet, in BIG waves, and at full tide.

Beard in full swing.

Waychinnicup National Park. If you can find a place any more perfectly peaceful, please tell me. We had it ALL to ourselves. I could definitely live here, like the bloke that opted out of society and built a shack on the hills surrounding the inlet.

Me, again, cooking. I get all the chores. Peta just waltzes around taking photos... la ti da.

Peta taking nice photos while Lachlan still above slaving over the hot plate, making her lunch.

Peta finding wildlife very interesting while Lachlan, STILL above, making her lunch.

Really Big Trees

2011-06-16T15:39:00.000+09:30

The area around Pemberton is full of forests with the most enormous trees. It was still raining but we figured we had to stop tasting wine eventually so we donned the goretex and headed out to the forests.

Nervous Peta crossing the suspension bridge while Lachy tries to rock it as hard as he can....

Karri Tree Forest. Very beautiful trees but apparently prone to dropping huge branches unexpectedly....

This is me starting to climb the Gloucester Tree. It is 60m tall and you can climb it using those metal pegs. I had been here before in 2004 and chickened out midway so was hoping to brave it to the top today - hence I kitted myself out with some sensible footwear - got to embrace the runners and jeans look.

I was pretty much petrified.....

And very close to crying at the half way platform much to Lachlan's bemusement.

But Coach McKenna got me to the top.

As soon as we got to the bottom Lachlan was off to the next really big tree.... This one was 68m and called the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree.

I used the very clear signage warning not to climb in wet or windy conditions as my excuse to take photographs from the bottom. Lachlan had no such concerns.

He loved it.

That night we stayed at Shannon National Park where they had a woodfired hot water shower block. Lachy managed to get the fire going with the damp wood and we waited for the thermometer to creep up....

The red needle took a really long time to move but eventually about three hours later it was ready to have a shower - bliss!

The park also had two little cabins available for campers.

We got to have a fire and log bunks and be inside... Even more bliss!

Our little pot belly.

More big trees, this time called Tingle Trees.

And another really high walkway. Although this one didn't wobble quite so much.

Margaret River

2011-06-14T10:40:00.000+09:30

Margaret River is another very pretty place in Australia. In June it is very quiet, and was rainy and windy while we were there.

So we had no choice but to spend most of our time at cellar doors of the many beautiful wineries. So much so that Lachlan even made me pose for this goofy photo.

It was a nice change to hanging out in our tent - tasting fabulous wine and being indoors and warm!

We added a wee collection of wines to our already overloaded Rav....

The forests around this area are magnificent. We had a break from wine tasting for a BBQ lunch here.

Really big trees....

Lachlan at work with the zoom lens at our campsite.

Nice shot Lachy.

After an entire night of rain Lachy rigged up this clothesline to try and dry our rather sodden tent. I made coffee instead :-)

Perth. Where we forgot to take photos....

2011-06-12T14:04:00.000+09:30

With our battered Rav and having had a couple of frosty nights we limped into Perth where we stayed with Alex and Victoria.

It was really good to see Alex who I hadn't seen since 2003 at her 21st birthday party. We went out and celebrated with a few too many drinks.

The next day we did some sight seeing and ate our way through the day.

After a huge serve of fish and chips Peta could still fit in an enormous chocolate filled donut.

We also visited Corina and Jawid, Sue and Ken, Sue and Colin and Layman. Luckily for me we had timed our visit perfectly as the Reds just happened to be playing the Force in Perth. Although no photos to prove it we saw the Reds win in a thrilling finish.

More Along the Pretty WA Coast.....

2011-06-10T13:16:00.001+09:30

Leaving Geraldton we headed off along the coast. With lots of cold southerly wind blowing we were feeling pretty lazy and were becoming quite the car seat tourist - you can see things surprisingly well sometimes without having to get out!

We pulled into this free camping site at Cliff Head about 4pm and couldn't believe how pretty it was.

Our spot was right on the ocean and had no wind! Perfect.

I had my first victory over Lachlan on the scrabble board for the entire trip. Quite an impressive board if I do say so myself.

After jaffles for breaky we decided to stay in this spot for another night and spent a whole day being delightfully lazy.

Stopping in at Green Head we could see big fish off the rocks so Lachy braved the icy water (and my fear of sharks around here) to do some spearfishing. Unfortunately no fish willing to be speared this day....

This bird seemed to pick one up pretty easily though!

Green Head is absolutely beautiful. We saw a sea lion diving about in this little bay.

We stopped in at Nambung National Park to check out the Pinnacles - towers of limestone which protrude from the desert.

You can wander in amongst them. Although it does all feel a little phallic....

The Nambung desert.

Sadly for us a few wrong turns leaving Nambung National Park resulted in us being quite lost. About a 100km from our intended destination with google maps open on the laptop we ended up driving through countryside with enormous kangaroos in the dark. We came over a rise to see a huge roo sitting in the middle of our lane... We hit the brakes and it jumped left.... But then the bugger turned and jumped right into us! The Rav now looks a bit violated and we spent a day both climbing in the drivers side until a panel beater rammed the door open for us. Fortunately no road kill to be dealt with though as the roo appeared to simply bounce off us and hopped away into the night.

About 150km North of Perth is a little place called New Norcia. It was a mission started by Spanish Monks in 1846 and became a self sustaining community complete with farm and flour mill. It is now largely empty except for tourism and an operating monastery. The architecture looks amazingly striking in the middle of bushland in rural WA.

The old accommodation for visiting parents to the private boys and girls schools has now been turned into a hotel. On our wee budget we didn't stay here but we did have a poke around and pretend we did :-)

A bit south of Kalbarri

2011-06-07T09:48:00.000+09:30

Just south of Kalbarri there's a strange phenomenon of an entire lake that has a pink hue.

Unfortunately it was a bit too overcast for us to get a good look at it, but for miles before we got to the lake we could see pink clouds. I was very confused by this.

More of the pink lake.

Northhampton is a cute little village with a strong history. First railway in Western Australia I believe. Judging by the number of churches they were probably mostly used to bring out priests.

Local priest-cum-architect at the turn of the last century, John Hawes, designed many of the churches and Cathedrals in the area. Didn't like Australia very much and ended up escaping to live out his days in the Bahamas just before the second world war broke out. Smart fella.

A bit more history in Geraldton, this is the memorial to the 645 men that died at sea when the HMAS Sydney was sunk by the German Kormoran, which later sank as a result of the battle. The memorial was built before they finally found the HMAS Sydney in 2006.

Each bird represents a soul lost on the vessel. Lots and lots of birds. Hard to imagine just how devastating this must have been.

On a less tragic note, there was a jumping pillow at the Geraldton caravan park. As you can see from the series of photos...

We...

LOVED IT!

It was actually a pretty good workout.

The winds are pretty strong in these parts. Here's a good example of what happens to trees when they get strong winds from the same direction ALL THE TIME.

Kalbarri

2011-06-05T17:45:00.000+09:30

Kalbarri is a little coastal town which sports amazing coastline as well as a beautiful National Park. We struck the weekend they were hosting their annual Crayfish and Canoe festival so things were happening in Kalbarri.

The surf was enormous so no spearfishing to be done. Instead we settled for some sunset beers.

We were the envy of the caravan park cooking up the 47cm tusk fish Lachy had caught that morning in Monkey Mia.

We were keen to do an overnight hike in the National Park but needed a second car for a return shuttle. While at the ranger station we happened across a friendly German chap also keen for some hiking. He looked fairly able and given he was keen to hike we assumed a level of fitness.

Introducing Stefan - The Liability.

We started the hike planning to take one night and be out in time to watch the Reds play the Brumbies. The walk was pretty tricky in places and involved crossing the river which was flowing quite rapidly. At the first crossing Lachy and I were both on the other side with our shoes back on and Stefan was about a quarter of the way across... Things were looking dicey for the Reds game.

Here is Lachy using his balance stick to stay upright on the slippery rocks against the current. Stefan reported he was at his limits.

The scenery along the way was gorgeous. Lucky we had plenty of time to sit and admire while we waited for Stefan.

Morning coffee.

More of the beautiful scenery.

My scraped knee... It looks small but it was very sore......

Along the gorge....

More rock admiration.

Lachlan's look of glee when he discovered we were very close to the end point and would just scrape into town in time for the Reds game.

The view of the gorge we hiked from the top lookout.

Given we have no spare seats Lachlan put his hand up to travel back to Stefan's car in the Rav's boot. The deal was sweetened with a cold beer from our fridge.

The coastal section of the National Park was pretty sweet too.

Albeit a little chilly.

Lachlan tending to a spot of house keeping.

We got up from our afternoon kipper just in time for a sunset beverage.

Somewhere in Western Australia

2011-06-01T15:29:00.002+09:30

Stromatilites - You need to say thank you to these little fellas. That started oxygen breathing life-forms on earth. Not a very exciting thing to see on your holiday, but 10 points for nerdy pleasure. Nice photo too from Pea-Pea.

Eagle Bluff shark spotting. No sharks but we got a good look at an island that they used to travel all the way from Europe to collect Guano: bird poo.

Tough day. Better have a beer at sunset, Eagle Bluff.

Cooked breakfast = Love handles. Peta did well not to get the extraordinary amount of rubbish left by people that failed human school in the photo. The Denham shire council needs to pull their finger out and clean this place up. The place was still amazingly beautiful.

I found a school of bream hiding in the shadows beneath this cliff. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get close enough to fire at them. I got out of the water pretty quickly when Peta said she saw a large black fin in the water about 50 metres away. It is call Shark Bay after all.

Peta, the Ringer.

The 40 degree artesian hot spa. Ahhhh, refreshing, but VERY salty, like all the bore water from this area.

Gremlin looking starfish

At Monkey Mia we were delighted by 15 dolphins that came in for feeding. Peta was very disappointed to not to get to feed the dolphins. She complained that you had to be either over 50 or under 10 to be picked.

They are very cute. Here's one contorting itself into a cute pose for food.

The spear gun proved itself to be a worthy investment. Here's a golden snapper. Yum.

Yup, correct size and big enough for eating, maybe a light sauce with this one?

After leaving Monkey Mia we stopped in to another shelly beach on the Shark Bay cape. That's not sand, they're tiny shells!

Boo.

Heading South on the Coral Coast

2011-05-30T13:50:00.001+09:30

Leaving Exmouth we headed into Coral Bay. This little town sits right on the coast and has even more beautiful blue seas and an opportunity for Lachlan to use his newly acquired spear gun. Armed with many brochures about idisustainable fishing, size limits, a measuring ruler, and multiple identification books we headed to the areas permitting spear guns.

It became clear why this area was open to fishing as despite abundant large fish in the marine park area, there was a profound lack of appropriate size fish waiting to be speared here.

There was some big fish we did not want to catch.

Despite valiant diving attempts there was no fish today.

Our roadside stop turned on a toasty fire and delicious baked bean jaffles.

And provided a lovely sunset view.

The next morning brought our first rain of the trip! Lachlan had to move his (smelly) runners off the roof and into the car.

Around Carnarvon Lachy was rather chuffed to see a McKenna Street.

Ningaloo Whale Sharks

2011-05-29T23:59:00.000+09:30

We were lucky enough to be in Exmouth in May when the Whale Sharks swim around the Ningaloo Reef. We forked over the rather extravagant fee and went out on a day snorkel trip with a company Ningaloo Blue. It turned out to be some of the best money we have spent so far! Some days the boats and spotter planes wait all day to find the biggest fish in the ocean, but the day we went the plane took off at 10am and spotted the first whale shark at 10:15am.

We were suited up, and been for a trial run with our snorkel. I’m smiling wide but was secretly somewhat scared about getting in the water with the whale sharks which can be up to 18m long.

As soon as we got in the water all my fears dissipated. These big gentle plankton eating giants glide through the water and were beautiful to swim along beside.

We were lucky enough to spot 6 different sharks for the day and we swam with five of them. The largest we saw was estimated at 9m.

At one point we were swimming with a smaller shark and suddenly an 8m shark emerged from the depths with his big wide mouth open. It looked briefly like Lachlan might be mistaken for plankton!

While on the boat we also spotted Pilot Whales.

Many flying fish – yes this is actually a fish... They jump out of the water and race away with fins flapping.

Many sea snakes....

A leatherback turtle.

And Lachlan pranced about on the deck pretending the boat was actually his.

Exmouth

2011-05-29T10:09:00.000+09:30

Exmouth, situated on a cape in the Gascoyne Coast of Western Australia is dead boring, but the National Park and Marine Park around it is the most phenomenal place we've seen. Ningaloo Reef Marine Park starts from just above Exmouth, wraps around the cape and travels about 150kms south along the coast. I wont bore you with EVERYTHING we saw, but here's a little taste.

Blue-Spotted Ray

Wussy Blue Fish (?)

Groper / Tusk Fish (saw loads of these)

Yellow Tail Snapper (I think)

Starfish Maybe? :)

Some Type of Rock Cod?

Trevally (BIG!)

...and a GIANT Hawksbill Turtle

He was quite the poser. The above photo (not the below photo).

So you can understand why we were pretty happy to be getting into the water to snorkel! But we were just as lucky below the water as we were above the water. The wildlife in the land-based National Park was also pretty impressive. Below is another collection of wildlife that we could capture.

Emus

Goannas

Kangaroos

Petas (Please watch out for Petas crossing roads whilst holding packets of chips and a small children)

Loud cockatoos playing

Big Pelicans

And this was all before we went on the cruise to go diving with the whale sharks!

Karijini Rocks!

2011-05-24T14:20:00.001+09:30

Karijini is WA's second largest National Park and is set in the middle of the Pilbara, the iron mining region. The red iron rocks form deep gorges and being a tropical semi-desert, these are filled with icy water creating spectacular waterfalls. Needless to say, this park was amazing.

Here is a shot of our little home with Lachlan's new requirement - the tarp forming some lino out the front.

We were pretty snap happy in Karijini so there are quite a few of these....

So delightful to know no crocodiles can get into these pools.

Hmm, you do question the stability of these little pillars....

Little did I know as I admired the sheer drop that Lachlan would have me climbing up the waterfall from the bottom in an hours time.

Off to climb a waterfall.

The stylish fly nets came out again - I take back all my mockery of others in these nets, they are fabulous!

This ladder led us down into Hancock Gorge.

We soon discovered why they had it as a class 5 trail as we spiderman walked through the gorge.

The end pool was pretty impressive. From this point on you need abseiling ropes and a permit to continue - much to Lachlan's dismay.

Karijini Rocks!

The views from the top were also amazing.

And then you get to go inside!

The water in here was truly freezing. I took a very unglamourous tumble into this gully about 30 seconds later....

At first it was amusing to discover that some French guys played a prank and hid our shoes. Not so amusing as we realised one of Lachlan's was so well hidden we couldn't find it. Luckily they were still up the top as we emerged (Lachlan somewhat hobbly with one shoe) and after a few pleasant words were delivered they went scuttling back to find it.

Kalamina Gorge.

More red rock admiration...

We love our fly nets so much we even adapt them for eating leftover laksa.

Sadly the Rav copped a flat tyre coming out of Karijini. Turns our we should have checked the tyre pressure on the spare. Lucky for grey nomads and their preparedness we were able to loan an air compressor and avoid another tow trip care of the AANT.

Cape Keraudren

2011-05-22T12:57:00.000+09:30

To break up the drive between Broome and Karijini we stopped at a little place called Cape Keraudren. We had no idea what to expect, but were pleasantly surprised! Whoever's been keeping this place a secret is both brilliant and selfish!

We camped just above the water's edge. Here, just 20 metres from our campsite we took photos of the sunset over the Indian Ocean.

In the opposite direction of the sunset was the hues of the night sky. The sun came up from here too - over water.

A large rockpool above the low-tide line was running out to sea as we stood by. We liked this place.

Sunrise.

Broome Times

2011-05-21T12:52:00.000+09:30

Minus the little Rav we checked into Cable Beach Caravan Park to sit out our days in Broome while we awaited the new clutch. Lucky for us our AANT membership provided us with a zippy red Hyundai Getz and paid for our accomodation while the Rav was with the mechanics. AANT membership - just paid for itself.

Once a month in Broome at this time of year all the tourists flock to the eastern side of Broome to watch the moon come up and create a staircase to the moon effect. Not something to plan your trip around, but was quite beautiful to look at, and as a bonus they had market stalls selling tasty curry for us to enjoy.

May the 20th brought Lachy Mac's birthday which the Caravan Park kindly celebrated on their notice board. We thought the picture had quite a striking resemblance....

We had some of the delicious Matso's Ginger Beer with lunch as a warm up for dinner at the brewery restaurant that night.

We spent some time on the very beautiful coastline around Broome and were even lucky enough to come across two indigenous chaps using traditional spears to fish for yellowfin tuna right off the shoreline. They were happy to tell us their hot fishing tips and let us take some snaps.

With snorkel and masks in hand we were devastated to learn the crocs we thought we had left behing in the Territory had ventured to Broome. Lachlan, recently scarred from his Mary River experience, obligingly obeyed the sign.

We did venture quite close for some feet dipping, although for once Lachlan was behind me in the brave stakes and he stayed further back using photography as his excuse.

We spectated the obligatory but stunning Cable Beach sunset with the camel rides wandering past.

While Lachlan spoke to Elle and Grant to receive some birthday cheer.

We needed to wait at Matso's to be seated for dinner and much to Lachy's delight they had retro game machines to enjoy! From here he engaged in some serious steak eating while sampling each and everyone one of Matso's beers....

Halls Creek to Cape Leveque

2011-05-17T12:24:00.000+09:30

Just near Halls creek is the Geike Gorge National Park. We followed a walk along the Sandy bank of the Fitroy River. We forget the stat exactly, but it is apparently the largest river in Australia, by volume, and you can understand why.

The gorge was on average about 200 metres wide and judging by the white stains on the side of the gorge walls, (caused by the high level of lime in the water) there's a shed-load during the wet season of the summer months. Compare the size of Peta to the height of the white stains.

It's a fair drive from Halls Creek to Broome, about 700kms, so out I got again to fill the tank from Jerry and Jerry. At least here we had views of stunning Boab trees.

We passed through Broome pretty quickly and headed up to Cape Leveque, and it wasn't too much longer before we had our snorkel gear on and in the water. Never mind that we just travelled across 100km of sandy road with the little rav just having clearance at times!

The life in the small rockpools was impressive. Who knew there was so much happening at your feet!

Cape Leveque, like much of the nothern Western Australian coast, has beautiful white sandy beaches with contrasting red (Pindan) sand and rocks next to them. Where the two met you could sometimes see pink sand!

Maybe a little excessively, but we used our new underwater camera to capture almost everything we saw in the rock pools.

We were sad to leave our campsite at Cape Leveque, check out the view from our kitchen! (and bedroom and entertainment area)

Unfortunately on the return to Broome the clutch in the Rav blew out. We thought it would make it back to Broome to get it fixed but, it didn't. With no phone reception (even with Telstra) Peta volunteered to take a ride with a passing couple into Broome. I waited with the car for three hours until a happy looking Peta returned with the Tow Truck and the driver, Jason.

The rest of the journey to Broome was done on the back of the tow truck. :(

The Little Rav

2011-05-15T11:09:00.000+09:30

The Tanami Track

2011-05-13T12:22:00.002+09:30

It's a 1200km dirt road from Alice Springs to Halls Creek. It had opened just a week or so before we attempted to travel across it, thankfully. The last fuel stop was Yuendemu before a 784km stretch of no fuel until Halls Creek. We carried 40L of extra fuel on top of the car, but we weren't 100% sure about how far that would last. It was going to be pretty close by our calculations added to that was the risk of the dirt road chewing more fuel. We were both a little worried, although we didn't let on to each other at the time.

The Rav was doing pretty well across the track up to the end of the first night. The start of the track was rocky and corrugated but as we entered into the Tanami Desert the road turned to red sand. Due to the above average rainfall of the 2010/11 wet season the desert wasn't really desert-like. Instead it was filled with small green plants and spinifex grass (those buggers sting).

Our campsite sunset was spectacular. Here's Peta setting up the tent while I just walked around taking photos. As soon as the sun went down it got cold! I now understand how it can be 30 degrees during the day and 0 degrees at night!

The stars were spectacular. I finally got a snap of the stars rotating around the southern pole.

Other than small green bushes and spinifex grass there were long stretches of beautiful golden wattle that lined the road and went as far as the eye could see. They looked amazing, like we were driving through a maze of wattle.

A slight disappointment was the defaced Welcome to Western Australia sign. I guess it reflected our sadness of leaving the NT... No more Paul's Ice Coffee.

The next night's camp site was the Wolfe Creek Meteorite crater, the second largest in the world. It was quite impressive. Peta was a little worried about a deranged murderer coming to torture and kill us in the middle of the night (re the Wolfe Creek movie). Luckily we were spared any type of murderous rampage.

Finally it was time to leave the Tanami Track and re-join bitumen road. It was a sad thought that we had finished our journey across the dirt track, but this was soon forgotten as we enjoyed the smoothness of highway driving! ahhhhh.

Halls Creek itself is only a bit more than a fuel stop and a couple shops, but the campsites towards old Halls Creek were amazing! There was some 4wd action and the Rav was love being back on dirt road, crossing small creeks and bumping over pebbly beaches. See the next post for some footage.

The Centre

2011-05-12T12:24:00.000+09:30

We spent the night at Kathleen Springs which despite it's no camping sign had quite a merry troop of campers checked in. We made a bright and early start and headed to King's Canyon in the morning. We overtook quite a few of the early walking grey nomads on their way up the canyon including a particularly vocal lady with a T-shirt sporting the slogan "Ageing - everyone's doing it".

Lachlan is demonstrating exactly what the signs said not to do and was forced to explain to an eight year old that it indeed was not a good idea and he really was being rather silly.

The rock formations on the top of the Canyon look like enormous bee hives and surprisingly there were no climbing prohibited signs here.

The views from the rim of the canyon overlooking a 300m drop really are spectacular. The sheer size of it is difficult to convey on camera, but here is one of Lachlan's panoramas - his new favourite photo technique.

Next stop was the famous monolith that is Uluru. It seems like an obvious statement but this rock really is big! The base walk is 10.5km and makes you really realise the enormity of the site. We grappled with the concept of climbing the rock (in Lachlan's case momentarily) and then decided to have a go. We were foiled by high winds closing the rock on our first two attempts so started with heading to Kata Tjuta and then the base walk.

Whoever named The Valley of the Winds walk at Kata Tjuta was really being quite literal. The goretex jackets made their first appearance as we wandered through the giant rocks.

The base walk was very beautiful and we did repetitively marvel at the contrast of the blue skies, red rock and green bush. The flies however did become tiresome and it wasn't long until Lachlan caved to the concept of the fly net (after earlier being heard to mock others with these accessories). The wildflowers were abundant with Peta's personal favourite being this number which closely resemble mini microphones.

Photography and touching the rock is prohibited for much of the walk but there were a few amazing spots we could get close and have a look.

Along with everyone else that visits Uluru, we lined up to view the sunset and try and get the ultimate postcard snap. In our case this involved climbing on the little Rav's roof racks. On our second night we were treated by Port and John with a gift of a sunset dinner so the sunset viewing style went a little more upmarket.

On our final morning the rock was open to climbing so up we went. It is a very steep incline that has the calves burning on the way up and quads trembling on the way down. Not to mention Peta's heart racing with a slight case of vertigo... Not surprisingly, the view from the top is amazing and it is clear why this place is considered sacred.

We then headed back to Alice where we were treated to another night of Doigy's lovely hospitality.

Brumbies!

2011-05-10T12:25:00.000+09:30

On the Mereenie Loop between the MacDonnell ranges and King's canyon we came across our first band of brumbies. They were quite fearless and for a moment Peta thought they may even charge the Rav!

Larapinta Trail

2011-05-08T20:57:00.000+09:30

The Larapinta trail is a long (hundreds of kilometres) walk divided into 12 sections. We tackled two of them, 2 and 3. With the assistance of Doig, we dropped our little Rav at Standley Chasm and got a lift back to Simpson's Gap. In total, to get back to the car we had to walk 37km through the West MacDonnell Ranges. With limited pack-carrying fitness it proved to be a little more challenging than we had expected. Flopsy, the impractical "sun-smart" hat which Peta is sporting above, became the source of frustration due to its "flopsy-ness" spending most of its time in her eyes (at least somewhat usefull at guarding her face from flies).

Mulga Camp, the first night's campsite, we had all to ourselves. In the black of night that you can only get in the bush, we did a bit of star gazing before realising how icy-cold the nights get in central Australia. We had packed thermals, but these seemed incapable of keeping us Darwinians warm! Luckily, the sun came out in the morning.

Throughout the walk the flora and fauna (although most was tiny) was spectacular. Due to the record breaking rains of the summer of 2010/11 the wildflowers were in abundance. Above are some good examples of things we took in. The birds on the right hand side were tiny. We've zoomed in (loving our super-zoom lens) to get a better shot. They duck and weave in flocks around the bush and across roads. Sadly, an entire flock can't escape the basket on the roof racks of a Rav4, but we don't talk about that...

The view from the top of the mountain that we climbed on the second day can't really be explained in a photo (although we've tried above). It was 1100m above sea level and about 350m above the main trail. Unfortunately, what goes up (lungs burning) must come down (knees jarring, quads straining). With 350 metres of descent covered in about 500 metres of trail, Peta's bung knees were feeling the pain.

Although we enjoyed the walk, we were happy to be walking out at Standley Chasm. Pictured here, we thought we were at the last summit, only to be smacked across the face with another two sharp inclines and their corresponding descents.

After the Larapinta Trail we popped into Ormiston Gorge where we thought we might do another trek, although this time without the packs. We were foiled by flood waters so instead, we settled for hot showers in the camp area. We didn't escape the camp ranger's detection, who pounced on us to collect her $6.60 fee each (a night's camp fee). The tiny bit we saw of the gorge looked spectacular. It's definitely on the list for the next time we decide to pass through central Australia. We pushed on to King's Canyon that night for our first night of dodgy road-side camping. Saved camp fees = more beer (Lachlan says).

Alice Springs

2011-05-05T21:27:00.001+09:30

First stop, the 25m high statues in Aileron (!?) and a quick look in their Art Centre. Not that we are looking for more indigenous art to add to our collection, but it's nice to look.

Craig (Doig) took us up Mt Gillen for a look at sunset. We were a bit short on time so Doigy had us running up the mountain. It was quite the exhausting afternoon!

Peta, posing, at the top of Mt Gillen.

Harrah! We conquered the mountain!

Lachy hasn't quite mastered the sunset lighting just yet, but looking dedicated in pursuit of the perfect shot.

On the Road (again)

2011-05-04T21:16:00.008+09:30

We spent a long time on the road after Kakadu. Firstly a visit to Penny Mules in Katherine then on to Ti-Tree to visit Nikki Cowcher.

It was still a long trip to Alice, even after 500Kms so far!

We wouldn't be in the NT if we didn't have a beer before midday. Here's the eccentric Daly Waters Pub at 10am.

We told you it was a long way!

Peta Karate kicked the Devil's Marbles during our fleeting visit.

It was nice to see Nikki and Dutch enjoying their new (cleverly portable) home in Ti-Tree.

Yellow Waters Cruise

2011-05-02T21:03:00.005+09:30

A bright and early start after our late arrival. We were treated to a beautiful sunrise over Yellow Waters.

We saw Jacanas, nesting Jabirus, Egrets, Yellow Tree Snakes, Kingfishers, rainbow bee-eaters, blue water lillies, whistling kites, magpie geese, thousand dollar ducks, and no less than 5 CROCODILES!

The tired eyes tell the story as per the above photo!