Days 22-24 Trip Destination Unknown (Port Augusta - Alice Springs: Barngala - Arrente Countries) 26/5/2022

 Day 22: The next few days are going to be long road trips as we head up to Darwin. Not much time for sightseeing in this part of the trip.  Today's destination was a little bush camp about 50km north of Coober Pedy. What I remember as a pretty tedious drive was rather beautiful.  After all the rains, the desert is green and perhaps being in the car with children towards the end of a journey didn't help in the past!  Quite a number of the salt lakes had water in them including Lake Hart.  

 

The new Ghan Railway basically follows the Stuart Highway up to Alice Springs, criss-crossing the road a few times. While we didn't see the Ghan itself, we did see a couple of goods trains using the track.  Fixing it after the rains earlier in the year must have been a huge task. Quite a lot of obvious damage along the edges of the highway and a number of lengthy go-slow areas where they have resealed the road recently. A few nice little flowering plants at our rest stops on the way.

 

 

Had a bit of a scare in Coober Pedy when the first two service stations we visited had run out of diesel but luckily a third still had some so we were able to fill up and reach our destination. We did not stop to sightsee in Coober Pedy, wanting to get to our camping spot before roo time on the highway. 

The mining discards around Coober Pedy seem to go on for miles - it is amazing what damage we humans do to our environment for what are basically just pretty stones!


We were the only ones using the bush camping spot and it was quite protected from the highway.  There were a few critters to occupy my time when we arrived at camp. 

The skies before dusk were full of storm clouds and we hoped we wouldn't be hit by heavy rain.


However, they cleared up to allow us a beautiful view of the stars early in the night. By early morning the clouds must have reappeared because we enjoyed rain from about 4am.  A watching-life-in-the-tree-trunks night. Night Life

Day 23: Heading up to Alice Springs, we again enjoyed seeing lots of waterholes with water in them and green growth in the desert. The landscape is interesting with quite a few ranges here and there. Our camping spot in Alice Springs is a caravan park about 16km out of town. Nothing wonderful but we did watch the lovely afternoon colours on one of the escarpments around here.

Day 24: Today we spent sightseeing around Alice Springs.  Specifically, we looked around Simpsons Gap, then rode our bikes for 40 km from Simpsons Gap to the Alice Springs Desert Park and back.  A wonderful ride.  The backdrop of the MacDonnell Ranges is wonderful - you feel so insignificant under their magnificence. 

 
Simpsons Gap

 
            The sort of country we rode in

The trees are wonderful too, in particular the shapes of the Ghost Gums and hakeas and the bark of some of the acacias.

 

 

There were hakea, senna and a few acacia in flower.

 

 

Although we were pretty exhausted after our ride, after lunch we visited the Olive Pink Botanic Garden. This is a great garden but looks as if it is in need of love and care and a few volunteers. 
 
At the top of the hill in the Olive Pink Botanic Garden

 

 
Sunset over Alice Springs










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