Darwin - Alice Springs

The next leg of my trip was from Darwin to Alice Springs. Whilst there is not as much to see in between it was quite breathtaking just to travel for hours on end through the outback and take in the scenery and remoteness.

This time our group was much bigger (24 of us in total) and as we were travelling by road we could go in a mini-bus rather than 4wd. We spent most of the afternoon at the Katherine Gorge which is part of the Nitmiluk National Park. Whilst we could take a river cruise or canoe along it I decided to just chill out and beside a short walk to the look-out I relaxed in the sun with the wallabies.

After a night in tents (we did have the option of swags but as it was starting to get colder we decided we would sleep in our tents with our swags as well. When you have the option you might as well take advantage of it!) we headed off to Mataranka.

Mataranka is a thermal pool surrounded by lush tropical forest. Although at 8am in the morning we were absolutely freezing we stripped off and jumped in - it was so worth it. Whilst the water was quite murky in some parts, with a few submerged logs along the way, the water was bath temperature and certainly warmed us up.

After that we headed to the Daly Waters pub for lunch, the Territory's oldest pub which is uniquely decorated with everything from underwear, to money and even flip flops. You really have to see the pictures to understand what a unique pub it really is. That night we camped at Tennant Creek.

On the morning of our third day we stopped off at the sacred site of the Devils Marbles, which balance precariously to take a few photos as well as one of the few surviving Telegraph Stations (and sight of the Peter Falconi disappearance) to get an understanding of what outback telecommunication used to be like.

That night the group went out in Alice for a few too many drinks and many of us were feeling a little worse for wear the next day. However as I quickly discovered there is very little to do in Alice itself with the highlights being the reptile centre, the flying doctors and Anzac hill with a view over the town. The mall in the town centre is eerily quiet with very few actual shops.

The reptile experience was quite amusing though as after we had looked around we came across a guy handling some of the reptiles in the garden. Thinking he worked there we started to pick them up out of their boxes as well and have our photos taken with them, only to later discover that these were in fact sick and were being given some much needed sunshine. The organised handling session was actually going on inside.