Hans & Arjan in Australia: The Red Centre

From the 17th till the 21st we took a tour through Australia's Red Centre. You can see the route we took on the map below. About 700km.

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Thursday

Today was our flight from Sydney to Alice Springs. After picking up our rental car (a Nissan Patrol 4WD) we drove to the hotel to freshen up and took off again to drive towards the east, to have a look at some of the "gaps" in the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges. The Emily and Jessie Gap. After that we were right on time to feed the Rock Wallabies.

Arriving at Alice Springs Airport

Feeding a Wallaby

A little Joey in its mums pouch

Friday

Today we had a long day ahead of us. We drove from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon via the Mereenie Loop (partially unsealed road). We stopped for walks at Standley Chasm, the Ochre pits, Ormiston Gorge and Gosse Bluff. This last stop is a very special one, and one of the sights we didn't see a few years ago.

Gosse Bluff is an impact crater formed by the impact of a comet approximately 142 million years ago. The original crater rim has been estimated at about 22 km in diameter, but this has been eroded away. The 5km diameter, 150m high crater-like feature is now exposed. You can drive into the crater (a very rough 4WD track) and all of a sudden you are surrounded by the crater wall. This place is also a sacred place for the Aboriginals. The crater is clearly visible from the sky on Google earth as well.

Gosse Bluff seen from ISS Gosse Bluff behind our car

Gosse Bluff from a distance

Ruud and the plains Our first sighting of a Dingo

Saturday

Another big day, get up really early for the 6km walk of the Kings Canyon rim.

A lot of uneven steps

Panoramic view of the Canyon

The Canyon wall

After the early walk we had to drive on to Uluru. The road is a normal sealed road again from Kings Canyon on. We arrived in time near Uluru (Ayers Rock) for the famous sunset.

Sunset at Uluru

Being a good son-in-law I always manage to serve a chilled Pinot Grigio for special occasions, even from the back of our Patrol.

Sunday

We needed to get up even earlier today, at 6:00am, because Sunrise is at 7:04 am today. It took a while to get a good spot, but we had a great view of the sun rising and slowly setting Uluru into the morning light. We spent the afternoon looking at Uluru in more close up by doing some of the base walks. The Anangu people prefer that visitors do not climb Uluru.

Ancient Aboriginal rock painting

Monday

Again an early morning, wake up at 5:30 (and Ruud didn't like a thing about that). The drive to the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) is about 27km to the west of Uluru. It is a beautiful rock formation and much much quieter then Uluru. After the sunrise from one of the viewing platforms, with some muffins and juice from the local IGA we got ready to do the Valley of the Winds walk (Walpa Gorge). This is a wonderful 7.4 km walk. Unfortunately there were millions of bush-flies we had to swat away the whole time. After the walk we had to get back to the airport for our flight back to Sydney.

Sunrise and Uluru Sunrise at Kata Tjuta