Rocks, rocks and more rocks

We are now on the Northern Territory leg of our trip. Our first sight of an impressive display of rocks was at the Devils Marbles, which is 160km south of Tennant Creek. Here there are huge boulders many of which have been eroded to round shapes and erosion has also led to some boulders being balanced on top of others. One night we watched a lovely sunset from a vantage point on a rocky outcrop. There were a few clouds on the horizon to add interest to the sky, which has been virtually cloudless since the end of June. We had two nights camped by the rocks and spent a couple of hours one day wandering around the groups of rocks marvelling at their shape and size. We were up early one morning to watch the sunrise turn the rocks to a rich red colour.

After Nicky joined us in Alice Springs we went to Uluru. We walked the 9.4km circuit around the rock, which gave us an understanding of its size and shape. It has many crevices, caves and valleys, some showing evidence of water having flowed there. The rock truly is an amazing spectacle standing on it’s own on a flat plain. We saw both sunset and sunrise over the rock, which turned its already red colour to a deep hue.

We spent a day at the Olgas, a group of 36 tall rocky domes. These are about 50km from Uluru and were easily visible from there. We walked the circuit track around one of the domes and from a lookout on this track we had a great view across a semi circular valley to many of the other domes that make up the group. These rocks are much more uniform in shape to Uluru.

From here we went to Kings Canyon and found the canyon rim walk most interesting. We went up a short steep climb to the top of the canyon, walls which range from 100 to 150 metres high. It was an awesome sight to look down into and across the canyon. The walk took us along near the wall of one canyon then into an eroded valley where there we many layered rocky walls. Beehive shaped rocky domes with a labyrinth of pathways between them. On the return to the car park we passed by the opposite edge of the canyon for another view of the sheer rock walls.

On the way we also got views of Mount Connor. This relatively unknown table topped mountain is 3 times the size of Uluru. Opposite the lookout to Mt Connor we climbed a small sand hill to discover a large salt lake. The sand here is very red, about the colour of paprika.

After a day in Alice Springs to catch up on washing and shopping we will set out on our next expedition, to the West MacDonnell ranges.