Palm Valley, a Happy Birthday and the East Macs

We always feel good heading back into the wild after a day or so in town. After just one night in Alice Springs we were ready to hit the road, let some air out of the tyres and get back to basics.

The drive itself wasn't a long one (about 210km) and after a very fresh start, the day was glorious and sunny. Perfect for adventuring.

 Letting air out for the track to Palm Valley in Finke Gorge National Park. 

The drive to the campground was about 17km (one hours drive) and mostly followed the dry Finke riverbed (Larapinta) including some rocky parts and some very soft sand (again!). The final 5km to Palm Valley proper was a true 4WD track - more on that later. The Finke River is though to be the oldest river in the world approximately 350-400 myo. It only flows a couple of days each year.

We followed the riverbed clocking all the quality firewood lying around as we headed in. When fully loaded we have no capacity for carrying firewood - we would have to come back.

Andy and I were here on our 2008/9 trip and have wonderful memories. We met some lovely people, who we are still in touch with. Palm Valley is not on everyone's red centre list. We were really excited to be heading back, and sharing it with the kids, and celebrating Jemma's 11th birthday here.

Waterhole at the Palm Valley campground. The kids spent hours and hours down here, sometimes alone, at other times with other kids. They built bases and slippery dips, and played tip, went 'fishing' and just had a great time.

 At other times they sat on the rocks in the sun.

I just have to mention that we knew the first few nights in Palm Valley were going to be cold. The coldest for the trip so far. By a long stretch. Overnight minimums down to -1C. In preparation for the cold nights ahead Andy did an audit of his warm gear - he had a lot. 

The rest of us were not quite so well prepared for this cold snap. The days were still in the low to mid 20s so once the sun got itself up we would be ok. The coldest part of the day is just before and after dawn, which is also my favourite part of the day - would just need to rug up. A lot!

 Looking happy with himself knowing that HE would not be cold. The kids and I just layered up with the limited warm gear that we had. Jemma and I also laid towels on top of our bedding for an extra layer of warmth. For the record we were not cold in the tents. 

 There are a few walks to do in the park. The day we arrived we walked up to Kalarranga lookout. This lookout gave us great views over this ancient and beautiful landscape. 

 Selfie at the lookout. It was just beautiful. 

  Jemma's Happy 11th Birthday. Too cold to get out of bed but happy and excited! *Please note the previously mentioned towels for added warmth.

 The campground is in such a gorgeous spot with stunning views all around.

 "Unwrapping" her gifts. This was a big surprise - a white (!!!!) dress with boabs printed all over it, designed by an artist at El Questro. Jemma had suggested buying a shirt with the same design for James's birthday last month, and she really loved the dress. She had no idea that we had gone back for it. 

 It was quickly squirrelled away in the bottom of a clothes bag until we get home.

 James created her a birthday badge which she wore with pride.

 Birthday messages and cards.

Jemma also got to choose our activity for the day. She chose NO walks and to stay and chill at the campsite for the day. We were all happy to comply and spent a very happy day playing, reading and exploring.

 Firewood haul. I think this was an Andy and James effort.

 And of course damper had to be made.

 

 Going for an early morning walk around the camp ground. It was clearly warming up as I only have t-shirt, flanno, hoodie, and neck warmer. 

 There were a nesting pair of Major Mitchell Cockatoos at the campground. They are such delightful, funny birds. 

 Down at the waterhole

 On our second day we drove towards Palm Valley itself to do one of the walks. The less than 5km was a good 45 minute drive away and we remembered it from years ago in our old troopy. It was a hairy, rocky, technical drive. We parked shy of Palm Valley and opted to walk the last, hairiest 1km, adding to our step count for the day. 

 We did the loop walk at Palm Valley which followed the river to start with, past stands of Red Cabbage Palms which occur only in Central Australia, before heading up the escarpment with panoramic views over the wilderness. 

 The endemic Red Cabbage Tree palms, and namesake, of Palm Valley

 The colours of  central Australia. Deep red, cobalt blue and the green and white of the ghost gums.

 A small cave in the rock at palm Valley

 Look at this crazy tree we found at the top! That horizontal trunk is growing out of the same root system as the vertical one on the right.

 This is where we parked the car for our walk to Palm Valley. 

It is really hard to get a sense of how rough this track really is. 

The riverbed is the track. It is uneven and there are holes of various sizes everywhere. On our way back to the campground from this spot we got bogged. AGAIN! 

We have the whole thing on video which I cannot load here as it will break the blog. 

A summary; Andy was driving. We came to a fork in the road (!), Andy hesitated, unable to remember the route we took coming in (with no incident, might I add). I said go left and realised almost immediately it was the WRONG WAY as we bounced along very soft sand, and faced a 20-30cm rock step back onto the riverbed. I called stop, go back. But it was too late. We sank down into the sand. Bogged. 

We were in a pickle. We needed to be able to gun it to get out of the bog, but also maintain control of the car so we didn't whack the diff going up the step. 

We were pretty bogged too. We did our best digging and placed the recovery boards and tried, and failed. We had to dig the boards out and start again. It was pretty warm this day, and hard work, with the sand sticking to our sweat.

It took a few goes but Andy managed to get the back wheels up out of the sand with the front wheels having enough 'bite' on the rock step for the Patrol to drag herself out in low range.

We were digging the recovery boards out for the third time when a fellow walker arrived to offer help. I think he was pretty chuffed to have arrived when he did, as the work was done. He had parked even further back than us.

I'm sure plenty of people damage their cars driving the last few kms to Palm Valley as evidenced by lots of scratches and gouges in the rock, often accompanied by drops of oil. I'm not sure many can say they got bogged though. 

 Still from the video - the moment i knew we were our. he rear right wheel was buried deepr than the left.

I wasn't driving but accept responsibility for this bogging.

 Cold morning at Palm Valley

After an exciting, and more strenuous morning than we thought we were getting, it was nice to get back to camp. We were even able to have hot showers - so good when you're sweaty and covered in gritty sand.

On day 3 in Palm Valley we did our favourite walk - the Mpaara 5km loop walk, which started in the same spot as the Kalarranga lookout walk. It looped down past the Finke River and up a gorge where we climbed up onto a saddle with the best views. We did not see another soul on this walk. It was incredible.

 At the top of the saddle

 The view behind us down the gorge (that we had just climbed up) and the Finke River behind that. It was such a beautiful day.

 Happy walkers

The way the campground is set up at Palm Valley makes it a very social place if you want it to be. Camp sites are set around communal spaces which include shared fire pits. We were able to have fires each night and had campers join us each night we were there. On our last night there was about 20 of us all sat around the fire after dinner, including a bunch of kids roasting marshmallows, playing a very noisy game of spotlight (lots of screaming), and twirling sparklers.

 Sparklers.

Just like that our 4 nights at Palm Valley were up.

This next leg of the trip, and last few weeks, was the most problematic for us to map out. We had 9 nights until we needed to be home, and we had sorted the last 4 nights of the trip...we just needed to put together a not-going-home-itinerary for the interim 5 nights. I like to think of our stops as stepping stones towards a particular destination, and it is difficult to move away from this thinking. 

In the end, we went against our own grain and ended up going, if not backwards, sideways and in the wrong direction for a few nights. We were not ready to settle for OK stops. We still wanted extraordinary, breathtaking beauty and adventure. 

So we went back through Alice Springs.

 The view from the Alice Springs war memorial is pretty great. We grabbed a surprisingly good bakery lunch and ate it up here before doing the  chores and heading...

... out the other side to the East Macdonnell Ranges (East Macs) to Trephina Gorge about an hour to the east.

 Trephina Bluff over the dry riverbed - this was the view from our camp site. 

This was such a great option for us. It ticked all our boxes. Beautiful, National Park camping. Small campground for car based camping only. Slightly off the tourist trail. Enough to do to justify a 2 night stay to fill the puzzling gap in our itinerary without going too far out of our way. 

 Collecting more firewood. 

 Dragon on the road. This guy was not moving for anyone, or anything.

 A dry riverbed is a playground and a place to walk and explore. I think Jemma had these clothes on for 5 days straight and everything is starting to look the same colour. The colour of the dirt.

 Getting the fire going nice and early so we can cook in the coals.

 Camp site sheriff

 Having a rest from more walking. If it's not too hot these two will walk for hours. I'm not sure what their temperature threshold is, but anything above 30C is starting to push it. Especially with no swim in sight.

 Night sky over the bluff

 Jemma's cubby and 'shop'. These sarongs have earnt their place in my bag - they have been used for sun protection, cubbies, beach rugs and towels, scarves, car window shades and I am sure a bunch of other things I am forgetting. They are soft, easy to wash and dry, and take up virtually no space. Note to self - always pack a couple.

 Damper on a stick. Please note the state of the stick and her hands. Filthy.

 This giant ghost gum is the biggest in the whole wide world.

 Full moon rising over the blazing rock - Trephina Bluff

 Camping at Trephina Bluff was amazing. 

The East Macs are famous for their Aboriginal art sites and geology, but are way less visited than the West Macs.

We had two nights here - we did some walking, a drive out to Ross River Station which is now closed ( would have been nice to know before we got there and had promised the kids a cold drink or ice block!), collected some firewood, explored, cooked on fires, and generally soaked up what we knew would be our last national park camping in the NT...for now.

With just 7 nights, and 1600km, to go, we were now well and truly on the home stretch. We had a slightly sketchy forecast ahead of us and a big surprise.