Family trip to Northern Territory

We booked a direct flight from Sydney to Alice Springs, but unfortunately Qantas rebooked us through Melbourne. That meant up at 3.30 am to catch the first flight (we did not want to cut it short with the second flight) and hang around Melbourne airport for a few hours. In Alice Springs we had to wait long for our luggage. Our first day, we started with a small reptile museum.

A perentie (a lizard)

On the shopping strip we found a lovely Italian restaurant - we should have gone back here. We stayed at a caravan park just south of town.

Our second day, we explored the Alice Springs desert park. Many habitats ...

good signage ...

nice flowers (the park was watering them, felt like cheating) ...

Fly veils kept the large numbers of flies away from our faces.

The biomass of termites in the Australian desert is as large as the weight of kangaroos and cattle above it!

Our first waterhole in the West Macdonald ranges

An abandonned gold mine

We booked an evening camel ride in Alice - a good choice as we were riding the camels for an hour.

Can you hear water through the tree trunk?

The mission station at Hermansburg was a safe refuge for aboriginal people, who were tought in their own language.

The Amphitheater near Palm Valley

Palm Valley - it is a mystery how the palms got here. Perhaps brought by people or birds (the palms are not decended from ancient forrests).

Normal desert vegetation around the valley. To get to the valley, we had to drive our four-wheel-drive over rocks and dry river beds.

The Mereenie loop was partially unpaved. As we were traversing Aboriginal land, we had to get a permit in Alice Springs.

Mulga trees on the right.

After 5 days in and around Alice Springs, we stopped two days at the Kings Valley resort, which has a special bar for watching the sun set on the King's Valley in the distance.