Today we ventured out to Palm Valley. This is an area that is situated on the Finke river about 140 klm out of Alice Springs. From all the answers we were given about the driving conditions, we went against all the answers of, it's a bit rough in parts, are you in a four wheel drive, has it got good ground clearance. Maybe you should only drive to the campsite as it's a bit easier. Well being an idiot and taken all that advise on board we drove to Palm Valley. The drive was approx 140ks to the turn off at Hermannsberg an then the fun began. There was a loud noise coming from the roof area, one of the locks securing the fishing rods was whacking the roof, electrical tape fixed that problem. Then I noticed I wet my pants. No it was water coming out of the jerry cans on the roof, the breather cap had come loose and was leaking. I actually thought that was funny. Madcow again. The corrugations went on for all of the trip. Oh by the way it's only 20ks into Palm Valley from the main road. We had a quick look at the Kalarranga lookout and moved on as I was wanting to get to the valley where all these Palms were hiding.

Unfortunately this is what happens when things go wrong. There wasn't much left of this camper trailer that had been stripped and left to die on the side of the track. This seems to be a common occurrence in the outback with mainly cars. The favorite choice of wrecked or burnt out vehicles are Commodores or falcons. Someone said they are mainly stolen then stripped and burnt out.

Anyway moving on we finally came to the first of many river crossings and managed to get through the rocky crossing. This was one of the easier ones. As we were told that track was bad we expected something worse than this one. The track didn't get any better, with ruts that had both of us getting  tossed from side to side. The kidneys got a bit of a workout. All good fun though.

Well this is what we drove into, an oasis in the desert. Palm trees, ghost gums and small pockets of water everywhere. This was interesting as before we got to the area we were driving through on river beds that hadn't seen rain in a while. The Finke river in some places was 100mtrs wide. This was an amazing place with the colours of the rock, trees and Palms something you have to see to believe.

This photo was of the area were you drive into. The water is low with nothing flowing through. The wild life is abundant with bird life and dingos. You can see the dingos foot prints in the sands, they seem to move through the area as their prints are everywhere.

As you walk further along the river bed, the palms are move noticeable due to their height. Some of these palms are over 300 years old. The sight from the rim walk above is spectacular. This is something you see in a movie scene.

Well that was the trip to Palm Valley, very well worth it even if there was a bit of 4x4 fun and the constant shaking from the corrugations in the road. We had fun and nothing got broken. I was surprised none of the beer or wine bottles in the fridges broke. The 40 ks of driving on the dirt road took about 3hours return. Shaken but not stirred. Gave the car a wash and headed for camp. We met up with some people we met on our trip and had a few beers and told the stories under the stars. Very cold stars that is. The temp in Alice is  very cold at night with the electric heater copping a hammering. Tomorrow we head north, Tennant Creek, but we will stay either south or north of the area due to the free camp sites available. We have to be in Darwin by the 30th May so need to move on. Bye for now.

Yeah, the car is doing fine, she's holding up to everything we're throwing at her.