3 - 23 July - The Red Centre

We took the Tanami Track from the Kimberley down to Alice Springs.  The track is over 1000km and there is no fuel for about 700km between the aboriginal communities of Bililuna and Yuendumu.  

Yuendumu is an aboriginal community in the Tanami Desert, a few kilometres off the Tanami Track.  The rubbish and dilapidated buildings were confronting but we stopped and had a chat to Melinda the resident mediator who was working on the Sunday we went through.

Uluru (Ayres Rock) at sunset and sunrise viewed from Yulara.  The rock is surreal, it really does appear to have been placed in position.

In Alice Springs we went to the School of the Air, the Reptile Centre, the Ghan Museum and the Truck and Transport Museum.  My niece Victoria and her friend Ombeline visited us for dinner which was a special treat.  We also attended the annual running of the Camel Cup which was a cross between a small town agricultural show and a primary school athletic carnival.  A special treat was catching up with the Smulders (the Lotus Family) who we first befriended back in the Grampians.

We rode our push bikes the ten kilometres around the rock and did an eight kilometre walk through Kata Tjuta (the Olgas).  The overnight temperature got down to minus five while we were in the centre!

Uluru at sunset from the main viewing area.

At Kings Canyon we did the six kilometre Rim Walk.

In the East MacDonnell Ranges we walked Trephina Gorge, visited the historic gold mining town of Arltunga.  In the West MacDonnell Ranges we walked Simpson's Gap, Redbank Gorge and Ormiston Gorge where we camped.  Next we went to the historic Hermannsberg Aboriginal Mission and Palm Valley in the Finke National Park.