The Red Centre

Actually the red centre was much greener than we expected because of higher than average rainfall during August and September. The deep red dirt was covered in clumps of greenery and there were lots of wildflowers (which was great as we missed the WA season somehow). Our first red rock stop was the huge granite boulders of the Devil's Marbles or Karlwe Karlwe, about 100km south of Tennant Creek. We walked and climbed around the rocks and spotted the "marble" that Uncle Sean had karate-chopped during his 2006 Oz Odyssey. From here we did a huge drive down to Alice Springs for a couple of nights and on to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Seeing Uluru in the flesh was an incredible experience. We've all seen it so many times in pictures that it was hard to believe it was real. We stayed at the only campground in the Ayers Rock Resort at Yulara and drove to the Rock and the Olgas during the days. The Walpo Gorge walk at the Olgas was fabulous - walking beside these huge steep walls of rock. On our final night we got to see a small lightning show and then the rain began to fall. It felt very strange seeing so much water in an area that we thought would be so dry. The rain continued as we headed north back to Alice on October 6th (Happy Birthday Aunty Lisa!), and we saw the Todd River flowing (which doesn't happen too often apparently). In Alice we went for a tour through the Royal Flying Doctor Service Base which mainly consisted of viewing some very old video footage of the history of the service and watching a woman behind glass operate her computer and sip her milkshake. Unfortunately the flight simulator was out of order. I also popped into the Araluen art gallery and saw lots of beautiful indigenous artwork including the Albert Namatjira gallery, and we visited Steve Strike (Strikey) at his Outack photo gallery. Then it was back on the bus and the long trek north through Tennant Creek and East toward the Queensland border.