Central Australia Adventure June 2012, days 12 , 13 & 14 1 1

Central Australia Adventure June 2012, days 12 , 13 1428/06/12
Day 12.......... Headed off this morning to the Cultural Precinct on Larapinta drive just out of town, a pretty interesting place to spend a few hours. It has an art gallery displaying aboriginal art, a museum with a fantastic collection of Australian animals, an aviation museum, and we were lucky cause the Beanie festival was on and we got to see some amazing hand made beanies, all for sale by the way, the most expensive selling at a bargain price of $1750.00 (see pic).
When we left the gallery we stumbled across an aboriginal artist named Cecily, she had just finished painting a small piece depicting what she described as her grandfathers earth dream. We paid her a small fee and a can of Coke Zero and the painting was ours, it was great to buy a souvenir that we were sure was authentic, and also inexpensive.
After that we did a little supply shopping and headed back to camp, not having found a place in Alice to by a Uniden Antenna, I decided to try and fix the broken one, I managed to get it back together, with it looking like new except for Being about 12mm shorter, not sure if that will effect the performance but it seems to work ok.
During the day I had found a place that would look at my failed trailer brakes on the way out of town on Thursday morning as we departed Alice, the only problem was he would only do it if we could get the trailer to him by 0800hrs, that meant a very early start.
We packed almost everything up except the beds and tent, fortunately we did not need to keep the kitchen set up, or keep any food out because we had been invited for dinner with a family that we met on our travels a few days earlier, they cooked fantastic pizzas in their mini webber, and we enjoyed a few drinks with them ( thanks Julie Ray) before heading off to bed.
Day 13.......... 0600hrs up and at em, quick pack up and off to JC'S caravans to have the trailer brakes attended too, just under two hours later we we on our way out of Alice, brakes working after two broken wires (courtesy of the Plenty Hwy) were fixed, bearings repacked, and $250.00 out of pocket.
On the way to our chosen destination Glen Helen we stopped at Standley Chasm , it's a nice place to stop and stretch the legs and get a bite to eat, the walk out to to the Chasm is easy and very scenic, our two young boys had no problem doing it.
They do charge a fee, and for a family of four its $25.00.
Our next stop along the way was Ellery Creek Big Hole, nice spot too, for a look, but if you are planing on staying there, the camp ground is very small, very rocky, and without any real amenities.
We then drove to Glen Helen had a look and turned around and went back to Ormiston Gorge, not really sure why but neither me or the wife like the look of Glen Helen, as it turned out Ormiston Gorge was very nice, the camp ground is not very big and we were lucky to have got in fairly early and got a good spot with a nice view and a bit of privacy.
From where we were camped it was only a 5 min walk to the gorge itself which was magnificent, while walking down we spotted at least 6 dingo's which we have been told will steal almost anything not tied down at your campsite.
Tomorrow we will walk to the lookout, a 30min walk according to the signs.
Dinner, a drink or two and off to bed, we will try to get up not too late and see the gorge in the morning light.
Day 14......... Up early this morning, had breakfast, and had the trailer packed away before 0930, we did the walk to the look out, a fairly easy walk up a narrow trail to the top where we had a great view of the gorge and the campsite below.
After departing Ormiston Gorge we headed towards Glen Helen Lodge, where we could get a Mereenie loop pass, with the pass acquired we continued on Namatjira drive which would take us around to Larapinta Drive, and then East to Hermannsburg, our intended stop for the night.
Along Namatjira drive we stopped at Tyler's Pass Lookout, where you have a brilliant view of Gosse Bluff, a 5kl wide meteor crate, impressed with the view we decided to drive into the crater and have a closer look. About 15kl up the road there is a turnoff on the right which takes you to the Bluff, turning into the road the sign said 6.6kl, it turned out to be a very rough and slow 6.6k to a fairly unimpressive spot, the view from the lookout gives you a much better view and perspective of size.
After leaving Grosse Bluff we headed towards Hermannsburg, which is east along Larapinta drive about 45k, this turned out to be very rough as well, lots of corrogations, sand, and bull dust.
We arrived at Hermannsburg about 1400hrs, WOW, how do I begin to describe Hermannsburg, scary comes to mind, the caravan park (read dust bowl) is surrounded by an 8 foot high barb wire fence, to get in you need to get a key from the supermarket then lock yourself in for safety. The town itself looked very ordinary with lots of run down houses, car wrecks, and stray dogs running around the streets.
We did stop and look at Albert Namatjira's tiny little house on the outskirts of town.
We did not feel at all comfortable so did a u-turn and drove out of town, we decided instead to head to Kings Canyon 197k away.
We travelled the Mereenie loop to Kings Canyon, the road was pretty rough in parts with the usual corrogations and bull dust holes, arriving at Kings Canyon after 1730hrs we decided to live it up for a bit and booked into a room for two nights rather than stay in the trailer.
We had dinner at the bistro, the meals were very nice and priced ok, the drinks on the other hand were outrageously priced, as are most things here, $10.00 for a stubble of Carlton Draught, cheapest bottle of wine $31.00, diesel $2.33 a litre.
After dinner we returned to our room to relax for the rest of the the night, I have to say it was nice being warm without putting on multiple layers of clothes, and also not having to set up the CT for a couple of nights.
Tomorrow we will do some of the short walks around the resort and have a look around at what else there to do.
Will also see about getting the shocker mount welded back on.
Still having lots of fun !

















Cheers
Dave T