Day 122 – 123. 24th – 25th July. Glen Helen Resort to Alice Springs

Today we were headed back towards Alice Springs along Larapinta Drive before turning left and heading westwards for 80kms to the outer MacDonnell Ranges to Glen Helen Resort and gorge, which is located at the western end of Namitjira Drive.
Glen Helen Gorge is at the head of the Finke River and is at the start of a spectacular series of gorges that are to be found all along the MacDonnell Ranges right back to Alice.
The resort itself is a camping ground that caters for camper trailers as well as caravans and motor homes. It also has safari tent type accommodation as well as bungalow type rooms. There is a chalet with a bar and restaurant as well. Overall the place has a rustic “hunting lodge” type feel, which was quite charming and appealing.
Not long after setting up, another Melbourne family Leanne and Peter Freeman and their 2 daughters Steph and Charlie, whom we had met at Uluru, also arrived unexpectedly. So they set themselves up beside us on the only grassed campsite area in the campground.
We had struck up a friendship with Pete & Leanne which was based upon mutual camper trailer admiration. Within an hour of us setting up at Uluru a few days before, they had rolled in with an on road version of our Tru-Blu camper. Ours was about 8 months older than theirs, so we immediately began comparing the similarities and differences between the 2 models.
The evening was particularly chilly and the next morning I was somewhat surprised when I awoke up and was making a cuppa, that I noticed what looked like ice crystals forming at the base of the hand operated water pump in the kitchen.
I turned and looked at the thermometer on the fridge. It showed the internal fridge temp as 0.6 degrees whilst the outside air temp was –1.7 degrees. I felt like jumping into the fridge to get warm!!!!
The strange thing is that because the desert air was so dry, there was no dew or ice on the cars or tents at all.
Before leaving Glen Helen we had a short walk down to the gorge, which has a permanent waterhole, although the water was very cold and only flows after substantial rain.
After this it was back in the car after a petrol top up ($2.25 c/l) for the drive through the ranges back to Alice.
On the way we dropped in at a few gorges as well. Ormiston Gorge was the first. This was once again spectacular, even though there was very little water in the waterhole there. There was however a heap of German tourists there fresh from their World Youth Day festival in Sydney and now making the most of their time here by doing a little bit of sightseeing. Many Germans tourists in the outback seem to have an obsession with trying to catch and or feed as many species of native wildlife as they can. At Ormiston there was one bloke, whilst being watched by his travelling companions, who was trying to pat a resident endangered rock wallaby. Having succeeded in this he then began to feed it some orange, which of course it took eagerly. I was pretty peeved at this due to the fact that there are numerous signs requesting that wildlife be left alone. So the girls and I moved further on to another spot, before I said something I regretted.
When we returned the fella was in the process of feeding the critter some kind of snack bar. I couldn’t resist so I ‘had a crack’ at him about it. The puzzled looked he gave me made me realise that he had no idea that he could possibly be doing something that may be harmful. One of his female companions had a go at me as well telling me to take it easy, as there was ‘no problem’.
I left before I started swearing at them!!!
We wound our way through the range along the road stopping a few more well known places, such as Stanley chasm. We chose not to explore this one as they were charging for entry and it was going to cost us about $50 to get in!!! I have bit of a thing about paying to see naturally occurring phenomena, because somebody thinks they “own it”.
Last stop before getting back to Alice was Simpson’s Gap, which is about 20 k’s from Alice.We arrived in Alice by about mid afternoon and managed to secure a spot at the same caravan park and the same site as when we had previously visited.