wicked!

When travelling around Australia you cannot fail to spot the incredible rental campers from Wicked.

These funky low budget customised vans ( around $30 per day ) are everywhere, and it is impossible to fathom how the company ever make any money because these things are hired by the 'not yet grey' nomads and thrashed to within an inch of their mechanical lives.

We met a guy with a serious 4WD rig who had just had a difficult drive along the Oodnadatta trail, where the road conditions had been more challenging than he expected. He said he was only going about 30 km/hour and coming towards him at about 100 km/hour in a cloud of red dust was ' a stupid young mungrel in one of those bloody wickeds'.

tennant creek

We have had a delightful 2 days in a bush camp 10 km outside Tennant Creek, a gold mining town pop 3,000 ( one of the big towns on the Stuart Highway) which evolved from a overland telegraph station during the last 1930's gold rush. It is surrounded by ironstone hills and termite mounds in their thousands.





We needed the break from driving and also some rest and recuperation for james dog who is now fully recovered from her dramatic vomiting episode.



We intend to explore the town this morning and then set off north again...only another 1000 km to Darwin.

devil's marbles

A point of interest north of Alice is the Devil's Marbles ( surprisingly another rock based feature). We tried incredibly hard to avoid taking comedic pictures of these interesting granite formations.........we failed.

just deserts

Many thanks to Arlene from Port Orchard Flowers for her kind comments about our flower snaps, and also to Dina in Texas aka The Girl Who Wished She Was Australian for her comments and interest in our humble ramblings. It is good to know that the readership has extended beyond family and close friends ( OK, probably only by 2, but it is appreciated).

We are now in Tennant Creek 502 km north of Alice Springs.We have found a great bush campsite outside town which fulfills all our requirements- remote, quiet, hot, and excellent wireless internet access! ** and just discovered it is $12 per night, so suspect we will be here tomorrow.

We left Alice to explore the East MacDonnell Ranges and experienced first hand the frustration of outback road signage- you travel 90 km along a tarmac track before you reach the sign which says 'dirt track next 400km, high clearance 4WD vehicles ONLY'.

There was a second reason to turn back however, as james dog had spent the morning vomiting theatrically all over the van.Being the organised and caring veterinary surgeon I had failed to pack any injectable anti-emetics and knowing that once she starts with her grumbling pancreas the results can be pretty messy we headed back to Alice. Another thanks therefore to Kathy at Alice Spring Veterinary Surgery for providing the necessary drugs to allow our onward journey to proceed.


Above: Emily Gap East MacDonnell Ranges.

The trip north from Alice really is desert, desert and more desert. We camped at Gemtree, a fossicking campsite east of the main road where people flock to rifle through the rubble looking for gemstones ( garnet, zirconia ) but gave the fossicking a miss as it was very windy and wild.

flowers in the sand

Alice Springs desert park is a great venue; it has the best nocturnal animal house we have ever seen with the animals kept in large enclosures with the lighting and environments painstakingly matched with their natural habitat. So yesterday we got to see bilbys, bettong, hare wallabies, spinifex mice, phascogales,dunnarts, kultars and the spotted quoll- all extremely bizarre and wonderful creatures.

There are also acres of plants including some fantastic desert flowering plants, a favourite of ours is the scarlet and black desert pea.









Leaving Alice today to explore the East MacDonnell Ranges and then start the northward journey to Darwin...we may be some time.

Ormiston Gorge

Having lodged at a house called 'Ormiston' while in Mudgee we felt obligated to visit Ormiston Gorge. It is reported to be the most spectacular gorge in the Western MacDonnells, and is a part of the Larapinta Trail

We have been doing bite sized chunks of this 223 km trail for the last few days. The Gorge has a near permanent waterhole, red river gums, and blood red walls rising to 300m. It was a 7km circular walk up to the top of the ridge and then down the gorge, but the weather was perfect with a cooling wind and not overwhelmingly hot.









You can run out of superlatives very easily trying to describe the landsape, it was a stunning walk.



Ness ended the walk with a swim.

towards alice springs

Two days later we finally arrived at Alice Springs late in the afternoon. After days and days in the outback traffic lights and roundabouts seemed almost alien. There is only one caravan park in Alice which allows dogs, and pretty grim it was too. Surrounded by German Shepherds and packs of dingo hybrids, and caravans stuck together with gaffer tape it felt like a refugee camp, but we needed water, diesel, and the luxury of internet and telephone access.

Next morning we headed west to the West MacDonnell ranges. Mostly National Park but we have fine tuned dog smuggling and were determined to see what is reported to be one of the most stunning parts of the NT.

First stop Simpson's Gap, a waterhole at the end of a currently dry river and the habitat of the rare black-footed rock wallaby ( one unverified sighting by Ness ).






It was surprising to see water after days in the barren desert. It is 9 years since this region has had any rain to speak of, so the waterholes in the MacDonnell Ranges are hugely important for plant and animal species.

Standley Chasm was equally stunning, with cathedral height walls.





We found a dog friendly lookout point over the Ranges in which to camp and decided not to return to Alice dog ghetto.