Day 98 Saturday 29th September Alice Springs

Left park at 8am for our day trip to the West MacDonell Ranges. We decided to do a day trip out to these ranges instead of camping at one of the gorges and taking the van through more dust, also to lighten the load on the car which is showing signs of wear and tear on the suspension! Our first stop was Hermannsburg which is a historic Aboriginal Mission which has been running since the early 1877. Now it is a dry community which is run by the native land owners and trusts. We had morning tea in the precinct which was recommended to us by the visitor centre in Alice Springs as they served the most amazing apple strudel!! After this we drove onto Palm Valley in the Finke Gorge National Park where we did a short walk through a lush trail amongst the red cabbage palms, felt like we were in a rainforest amongst the rocks, despite being in the middle the dessert!! We had a short break for lunch, then set off to Redbank Gorge. Along the way we tuned into the radio for updates on the grand final!!  The walk  into the small gorge and waterhole was surrounded by deep red towering cliff faces. Very pretty. We headed off after this to attempt a walk through Stanley Chasm, but unfortunately it was too late in the afternoon by this stage, so we kept driving back to our caravan park in Alice Springs. We  arrived home late, so had an easy dinner of pizza tonight.

 Hermannsberg Mission

 Palm Valley - It was a challenging drive in but was great when we arrived. No water was anywhere to be seen.

 The views on the way in were fantastic to Palm Valley

 Gosses Bluff Crater, This was unbelievable,this mountain range was from a meteor from about 140 million years ago. It was estimated to be approx 200,000 thousand times of the Hiroshima bombs!! 

 Redbank Gorge