Finke river campsite to Palm valley

It was a good 30 minutes before sunset when Corinna and I awoke and the sun was yet to poke its head over the macdonnell range behind us so we stayed up to enjoy the site it offered as we drank our morning brew .

The kids woke fairly soon after and with a simple cereal brekky we were on the road nice and early .

Compared to the last few days where we were only doing less than 100 Kms per day as there was so much to see , well today we actually clocked up nearly 200 Kms before we set up camp and finally it was off road for quite a large part of that .

We headed back  only a short distance to Glen Helen gorge to check road conditions and to look at the large gorge behind the old station .

After chatting to the owner briefly we decided against the mereenie loop pass for the western section as i  was keen on doing boggy hole and policemans waterhole along the Finke river which is very rough and slow going but from what I had seen in pics and stories would be well worth it 

Our first stop today was at spectacular redbank gorge which was a rocky little walk down to the gorge but well worth it as has nearly every gorge or roadside stop along this red centre rd.

The views on today's windy drive were simply amazing looking out over Mt Sonder then mount razorback and over to N.T ' s highest peak of Mt Ziel .

After a sealed windy section uphill we came to Tyler's pass with captivating views over krichauff range mereenie range Gosse bluff below and the valley between .

We took the dirt road into Gosse bluff where we took several short rocks explaining the dreamtime stories of creation of this crater and then the scientific explanation  of the way this area was formed from a comet crashing into the area millions of years ago forming the riches and crater we were in .

The other walk dash and I did was a small rocky outcrop overlooking the crater floor below , and the cave poched walls around us. 

Whilst cooking lunch of noodles here I accidently spilled the whole bloody lot onto the ground wasting it all ( or feeding the crows lol ).

From here we took the Unsealed and very corrugated Larapinta drive towards Hermannsburg and turned of briefly to visit Albert namantjiras house he built in 1944 .

From here we took the turn off for Palm valley ( Finke river national park ) where after airing down again we reached the campground on the 4 wd only  track just short of the valley walk .

The kids had a swim in Finke river behind our campsite and revelled at the chilly waters .

Happy hour was upon us so bikkies dip and a frothy went down a treat all round .

Shahla had made a friend in another camp near us her name was Aisha she was happy playing with her for most of the night while I made a mean batch of beef and veg vindaloo with couscous .

A couple of dingoes were on the prowl for food scraps and managed to take some from backpackers nearby but we were packed up well enough to not worry too much but we got to see them fairly close in our campsite just the same .

Bugs were every where here as where large cycadas which got in everything but it was now bed time it had been yet another action packed Red centre day.