First, to follow up on the motorhome, the good news is that it was fixed relatively easily Monday morning. It was just a hose leaking under boost pressure, between the turbo and the intercooler. Phew!

Alice Springs is actually quite a beautiful place. Sure it is a rough, rugged, and somewhat dry but that brings out a certain beauty that isn’t seen in many places. I can see why it is a relatively large town, even though it is so far from everything else. It is literally nestled right in the MacDonnell ranges, which as you’ll see shortly are quite stunning.

Warning: another huge post full of pics!!!!

One thing that makes this range different from others, is the distinct sedimentary lines that it is formed from, and can clearly be seen running along it. Apparently this range is one of few where a complete sequence of sedimentary rocks, laid down over 400 million years, are all exposed. It looks like someone has drawn a series of straight parallel lines across the whole range, and placed rows of rocks sticking up on each. At different scales too – from whole hills/mountains themselves being in line, down to mid sized rocks on each hill also aligning.

Monday arvo we headed out along the range and camped overnight at a place called Ellery Creek Big Hole. A beautiful place where you can swim (but water very cold at the moment!), and up to 14m deep! Jonathan and I did a 3km walk before the sun went down and we cooked another lovely meal on the BBQ plate.

Tuesday we headed out further, to Ormiston Gorge, and then planned to retrace back to Alice Springs stopping in on some of the gorges we had passed on the way out. Ormiston George was also incredibly beautiful. Here are a series of photos from the waterhole and the gorge its itself. We did the 2.5km Ghost Gum walk.

Next it was on to the Ochre Pits. This is where Aboriginals go to get the pigment for their paintings (well one location anyway!).

Final stop for the day, before heading back to Alice Springs, was Serpentine Gorge. Another absolutely beautiful place. This one has a pool of freezing water at the entrance to the gorge, to stop visitors walking up it….. Instead, you have to climb up the side of the mountain to the look-out to view most of it. Well worth the effort!

So we’ve been completely surprised by Alice Springs and its surrounds – we had expected totally different country – and nothing as beautiful as this! There are a few more gorges that we ran out of time to see, including Simpsons Gap which we’ve been told is actually the prettiest of them all! Maybe after Uluru when we head north again (the ones we missed are those closest to Alice Springs).

There is a walking trail, the Larapinta Trail, that extends 232km’s along this range visiting these gorges and more. I’d love to come back and spend a number of days doing that trail. Kathy, I was going to suggest it to you, then saw in your reply to other post that you’ve already done it! Maybe we’ll come back once I get a 4wd motorhome built, but that’s another story….

Big drive tomorrow – off to Uluru to meet up with Nikki and family. Oh, and if anyone from Calvary wants organise another couple days off for Nikki, she’s jealous as there’s a particular place in the MacDonnell ranges she’d like to visit… Haha.