Red Centre - Alice and Kings Canyon 3/12/07 - 9/12/07

Kings Canyon

Alice Springs Desert Park

Mitch and the fighting boomerang. This weapon was used for fighting, breaking bones or inflicting injury as punishment.

At the Alice Springs Desert Park, we went to a very interesting aboriginal talk about tools, food gathering, and hunting.

Richard is holding a spear used for spearing legs. Mitchel has a Nullanulla – used as a club. Callum holds a shield – used for deflecting spears.

Alice Springs is the second largest city in the NT. It is surrounded by spectacular MacDonnell Ranges. The picture is taken from ANZAC hill overlooking the middle of town, and the gap in the distance is Heavitree gap – a pass through the ranges made by the Todd River.

Every year in Alice on the Todd River they hold the Henley on Todd boat race. The unusual thing about this race is that the Todd River is nearly always dry, so the boats used for the race have no hull and are carried by the competitors

Kings Canyon… and it rained.

Kings Canyon is near to Uluru and normally very dry.

The cliff walls rise 200 metres above the floor of the canyon. Though the surrounding country is dry and flat, the canyon floor was wet and full of life.


We did the walk around the top of the Canyon, it takes around 3.5 hours, but the views are spectacular.

Strange fruit..?

Can you see Kate in this picture…? There are 600 types of trees and plants in the canyon and 60 are very rare.

Sunset over the Gorge Gill Ranges.

Story time.. Scott of the Antarctic..

There are lots of birds in the desert.

The Barn Owl... one of Mitch's favourite birds.

Black Kite.. these are common in the Red Centre..

Black Red Tailed Cockatoo...

We found this Cicada at the door of our van… it is proudly sponsored by McDonald's.. the golden arches are everywhere!