Redbank Gorge

From King’s Canyon we returned to Alice Springs and decided to spend a few more days here before heading to Queensland. Having explored the town during our last visit (seen here) we decided to take a day trip to the West MacDonnell Region. It was breath-taking, the drive to the region boasted beautiful scenery that my camera couldn’t accurately capture. We had three main stops during the day but due to my happy snapper nature I have split the day into three posts, with parts two and three being posted later this week. The photos in this post are from Redbank Gorge, a gorge which we spent several hours exploring, swimming and clambering over rocks.

The Big Crocodile

Just before we headed into the Northern Territory we saw our first croc. We purposefully took a small detour to the town of Wyndham to see the big crocodile that stood in the town centre. We didn’t stay too long in Wyndham as we needed to make our way to a campsite quickly. As we had started heading into the tropics we were entering the build up to the tropical wet season and found ourselves racing against storms to set up tents in the dry.

The Grotto

On our way around the Kimberleys to Darwin, we found we were unable to explore the region as much as we had hoped due to our car being a 2WD. Although many of the roads do not specify the need for a 4WD we opted against them. Just driving the short distances down the corrugated gravel roads, often required to reach campsites, put our heavily laden car to the test and wasn’t a comfortable ride. One of the places we were able to visit was the Grotto, situated along the main highway. We climbed the 130 steps down to the pool, only to find that it didn’t look too appealing at the end of the dry season. The water had gone stagnant and the waterfall had dried up until the wet season. So instead of a quick swim we climbed back up the steps and into the car and headed to Wyndham in search of something big…

Broome

Broome was our last main stop on our way to the Northern Territory. We spent a couple of days here battling with the humidity (which had increased to above 80%) taking in some sunsets and searching for dinosaur footprints. Unfortunately we didn’t have any luck on finding the dinosaur footprints, as they are only visible at the low tides that occur around full moon. As we arrived a few days after full moon had happened we were only able to see the cast that was taken from the original fossilised footprints.