Kings Canyon to Alice Springs

It was not realy easy to leave Kings Canyon having met so many nice people there. In the morning we had a real photo shooting (back home some of them will show the pics of those two crazy people cycling in Australia;-), people came to say good bye.

We have started to cycle the Mereenie Loop, we needed a permit for that, since the road goes through the aboriginal land. And that is what we saw: the way goes all the red road down there!

The road was quite...well 154km of gravel road with currigations like hell... Have a look at this short movie, we think it gives the „spirit“ of our 2 cycling days very well;-)

Even though the road was very hard for us to cycle, we were very happy to be there because of the magnificent landscape.

In the evening of the first day, after 82km being shaked thousands of times, we decideeing shaked thousands of times, we decided to stop in the bush (this decisoon was an easy one, there was again nothing else around). Quickly we found out, that this is wild horses territorry! There were 15? 20? of them passing us by, and both parties had a look what the others want from them. 

Wild horses are called brombies here

A donkey was also there

Later that evening a dingo visited us and wanted to steal one of Peters front penniers, but we manage to scare him away.

Second day the road got even worse!! We were very lucky to carry less water the whole day, since we knew, that two tourists from Germany, Ruediger and Henriette will start driving the same road one day after us amd they will bring us a few liters of water supply. In such road conditions every kilogram counts.

While we were having a coffee break and 50km in the legs we saw a known car!Yeah! It is them. 

Water supply backup

Not only we got water supply, they also got us 2 cans of Coke! a chocolate, 2 oranges and a tin of fish. We were delighted! And believe it or not, after the break the road got better, and the last 26km that they were quite okay and we were able to camp already outside the gravel road.

In the night of this very cold night (2 degrees C) we suddenly heard wild horses running around VERY close to our tent. Strange feeling being in the tent, 4 oclock in the morning and there are many big animals outside... Luckily they were more afraid of the situation then we did, and run away...

The next morning the landscape changed again. It was very pleasant up and down cycling on a bitumin road. No gravel, no shaking, yeah!

The hill in the background is a meteor crater of 5km diameter! Gosse Bluff

We go to our goal at Glen Helen, beautiful outback resort and styaed there for 2 nights eating burgers, dringink Coke, just resting after the Mereenie Loop.

Jodi we met at the campground prepared a lovely breakfast for us!

Peter got in very close touch with a Gala parrot.

Since there is a lovely Gorge, Glen Helen Gorge, we had a look there as well of course.

We scared some bulls away...

In general the West MacDonnel Ranges is an outback experience in the Central Australia that we would not like to miss. It is amazing how green it is, and it is all surrounded by the desert! Lovely geological formations, water holes, gorges, simply great!

Ellery Creek Waterhole

Our last stop before we got to Alice Springs is Reedy Waterhole. In order to get there we cycled 5km in a river bed. Very rough cycling, sand, stones, yeah, dry river;-)

And the surprise of the day was, the waterhole was dry... so no swimming today... Anyway we enjoyed staying in this place a lot and spent a great relaxed day there.

Firewood collection outback style

Daily dealing with the flies