18700km. Half way around the world.

The map we made for the kids.

We made it home in early October - one day ahead of schedule. No punctures in our 18,700km odyssey to the west. The circumference of the earth is is 40,000km to put that in perspective. Our trailer was written off - very sad to see it carted off to Pickles auctions - where it fetched $2000.  Kudos to the RACQ who spent $2000 getting us on the road again in Darwin, and then giving us the full insurance amount.

We spent the insurance cheque (plus a bit more) on the same model trailer (but 4 years newer). After the luxury of a memory foam queen size bed, mattresses and bunks for the kids we found it hard to think about camping in a tent. Lots of mods Tony needs to make - but they can wait. Our mechanic gave the Landcruiser the thumbs up - while noting a significant number of stone cuts in the tyres. The coating of red dust on all the interior vinyl and air vents looks to be a permanent feature. We got the kayak and canoe safely home on the roof racks. I suggested we ditch the mangled canoe in the west. But it seems our family brings everyone home, even lame boats.

The trip was awesome, with the obvious hiccup - I think we qualify as "experienced" now. We learned some good travelling principles. Never travel more than 800km on bitumen in a day - and stay in cabins and hotels if you do. Never travel more than 400km on dirt roads. We are writing it here so we don't forget.

 It certainly has planted the seeds of future journeys. The area around Alice Springs was just stunning and we only saw a fraction of it - and we were never going to have time on the trip to see the tropical part of the Territory, or outback Queensland properly. We figured that these were in striking distance for a couple of 4 or 5 week trips from Brisbane. The Kimberly, Pilbara and Ningaloo reef are not. Our trip across the deserts confirm that the classic Simpson desert crossing is a must for the near future. Perhaps even with friends we made on our travels.

Plenty and Donahue Highways

We headed out from Alice Springs to drive across the border and back to Queensland.  Total distance to Boulia (first town in Queensland) 745 km over dirt roads.  We had heard many stories about the poor quality of the roads but really they were just like any other dirt tracks - some sections excellent and some very slow.  The art seems to be driving above 70km/h to avoid corrugation vibrations and below 85km/h (well, we know what happens when you hit a pot hole/wash-out/bulldust patch at higher speeds!) Mostly, both roads were excellent.

We Geocached throughout the trip and go to some more interesting places as a result.  The photograph below is the Hartz Range Campsite where we found the cache and also excellent views from the site.

The "Eagle Eerie" geocache site. In the howling wind and dust-storm it was certainly an eerie landscape!

Max and Max and Laura really got into the geocache spirit and had a great time finding treasure.

We didn't take many photographs of the many amazing termite mounds we have seen but this one was too large to leave without a photograph!

At the Queensland border, the route changes name from the Plenty to the Donohue Highway

 The scenery wasn't quite so impressive compared with the Northern Territory side of the highway.

 We had to take a photograph - the monotony of the Mitchell Grass has to be seen to be believed!

 Fortunately a little further down the highway we arrived in the jump-up country.  This was a very spectacular landscape

We camped on the side of a side-road next to a jump-up.  It was one of our best campsites and the advantage of the camper trailer - being so self sufficient meant we could take advantage of the opportunity to camp in beautiful surrounds totally alone.

This is taken with the trailer behind us - stunning.

We moved onto another geocache site for breakfast - this photograph is taken from the top of the jump-up where we found the treasure.

We visited the Middleton hotel - the seventh of the nine stages of the stage coach run between Boulia and Winton and once a small town.  Now it is a pub in the middle of nowhere.

The kids enjoyed a coke in the pub.

We finally set our own geocache which we will upload onto the website once we get to Brisbane.  We have added our own geocache to the "Outback Way Geocache trail".

Finally our outback way adventure is complete - starting in Laverton in WA and travelling through the Northern Territory and to Winton in Queensland.  It was a much more interesting trip than taking the bitumen route down south.  It was well worth the planning and effort!

Tourists in Alice Springs

Our circular trip through the East McDonnell Ranges brought us back to Alice Springs for a mad 36 hour visit to Alice Springs. 

We visited the reptile house in town and the Royal Flying Doctor Service museum on day one. On our second day we spend the morning in the "Desert Park" a well run wilderness park combining aboriginal culture and outback wildlife. The bird show was excellent. The park mostly consists of ecosystem-specific aviaries in a bushland setting.  The bird talk at the waterhole was excellent.

 As the temperature was 38 degrees we escaped to the movies for the 2pm showing of "The Boxtrolls" a new movie. After catching up with a friend from Brisbane who we hadn't seen for years we fed rock wallabies at Alice's gap in the McDonnell ranges. Then we shopped for our trip across the rest of the "Outback Way" back to Queensland.

Cool lizards in the reptile house.

Laura and Max flying a RFDS aircraft.

Tony loved the cool pedal radios that the RFDS introduced throughout the pastoral stations for communications.

The bird show at Desert Park. Hawks, owls, curlews (plenty of these on the UQ campus where Tony works) and a goshawk,

Laura and Max chillin' at the movies.

Feeding the rock wallabies in Alice Springs.

Jewels!

Frankly, and this is hard to admit, we were "gorged out" after three nights in the stunning West MacDonnell Ranges and needed to do something different. Gemtree, east of Alice Springs, was a perfect change - we stocked up in town and headed east.

It was a great bush camping park, and we did a fossicking tour the next morning, finding a zip-lock bagful of garnets. About 10 were jewelry-standard and rest were "show-and-tell" standard (awesome!). Julia is having some earrings made from two of our bigger stones (5mm).

Rather than heading back on the bitumen to Alice a couple told us about a rough 4wd track which headed south into the East MacDonnell Ranges (Binns track).  We were off on another adventure. We came across the historical Arltunga township (the original site of the Northern Territory's second city). This is a partially restored gold mining town (1890-1920) with a dozen or so stone buildings/shacks; most in ruins.

We stayed at the Ross River Campground (in a cabin, we are also a bit over camping!). We had planned to head back to Alice Springs via the bitumen road, but Jodie, the excellent manageress told us about a rough back road. Red rag to a bull - we were driving through sand and rivers and skimming the edge of the Simpson desert. Now we are in Alice Springs in a B & B with a pool!

Watching "Legend of Korra"

Very beautiful parrots eating the Mulga seeds.

Searching for garnets

The kids opening gates on Binns track.

The reconstructed Arltunga police station. Some nong started a rumour about gold hidden in the walls so it was duly torn down.

Views from the hill above the Ross River Camp Ground. Owned by a Grollo from Melbourne apparently.

Crossing Ross River

Petroglyphs (simple carvings) in the rocks.

N'dhala gorge

On Binns track

Oh yeah!

West MacDonnell Ranges

From Kings Canyon, we drove over 100km of dirt road to the West MacDonnell Ranges. These low rocky ranges have multiple gorges carved through them, often filled with water. The rivers drain south into the Simpson desert and the vast Lake Eyre (a mainly dry salt lake). We had two amazing birds visit our bush camp at Redbank Gorge - the Red (RED!) Breasted Robin and Superb Blue Fairy Wren. We got done by the local dingo - she chewed the corner off our heavy duty naly bin, and knocked our put box over (we did not know it had choc chip biscuits in it - but she did). We laughed when she settled down 10 metres from camp in the shade of a Mulga tree and waited for us to leave for a day trip.

Tony was told about this legendary road marker 25 years ago - we found it on the road to the West Macs. Unfortunately its fabled sister "Put foot down" was not around the corner so his quest continues.

Another cool outback lizard.

Max at Gosse Bluff, a 144 million year old meteor crater.

Gosse bluff from afar.

Mt Sondar in the West Macs.

Glen Helen Gorge

Ormiston Gorge

Redbank Gorge

Julia liloing in Redbank Gorge. The water was freezing!

Looking west from a dawn climb on Mt Sondar. Mt Zell (circa 1500m)., the highest mountain west of the Great Divide. Flat country! For non-Australians the Great Divide runs about 100-400km from the east coast, so "west of the great divide" is most of the continent!

Looking east from Mt Sondar

The dingo!

Ellery Creek Big-Hole.

The kayak gets its last(?) ride for the trip.

Road corrugations leading towards Redbank Gorge.

Dingo attack! The brandy survivied.

Simpsons Gap

Native hibiscus.