Monday 30th July and Tuesday 31st July, 2012 - Once we left Ti Tree - and to be honest even when we were at Ti Tree - there was nothing to see until Alice Springs. We did, however, stop at a little Aboriginal Community along the way called Aileron (see the photos with the huge Aboriginal statues) and bought a painting. It will have to be framed when we get home. We thought we would do a little wandering around Alice and we checked out the info at the Tourist Information Centre. After a caffiene fix for Kerry, we headed to the East MacDonnell Ranges and decided to camp out at Trephine Gorge for 2 nights. What a beautiful place. The nights were a little chilly but the days were just glorious. We did a hike - only a little one Mel - but it climbed over the range and then dropped down into the dry creek bed and meandered on back to the camp site from there. Really lovely. We took a drink down to the creek at sunset and got some great shots.

Wednesday 01 August 2012 - We headed back to Alice to refuel the car and the gas cylinder and then headed off to the West MacDonnell Ranges. Called in at Stanley Chasm - a bit of a rip off - $10 per person just to walk up to the Chasm but as it's highlighted on all the tourist maps, we felt we should do it. Wasn't bad but the best was yet to come. Off we drove to Ormiston Gorge. The campsite there was $10 per person but they had lovely hot showers there and the walks from the campsite were just fantastic. We did the walk to the lookout when we got settled in as it was coming to sunset and we couldn't go too far. The walk was about 30 minutes - 20 minute was straight up - the other 10 minutes was the downhill run home. It's just such a magnificent area! The colours in the rocks were amazing.

Thursday 02 August 2012. OMG - such a cold night. Almost as cold as the Warrumbungles but perhaps not quite as cold! We decided to do the 7km Ormiston Pound walk in the morning which they estimated to take between 3 and 4 hours. When we left at 8 am, we had about 3 layers of warm clothes on, beanies and ski gloves. As we were getting ready to set out, we could hear the dingos howling and I couldn't help but think I was just getting rugged up to warm up their breakfast!!! It was such a lovely walk. I'm so glad we did it. It did take the 4 hours as we stopped for photo opportunities and we had morning tea at the lookout. Towards the end of the walk, you had to wade through some water. We were prepared to do this, however, I don't think we were prepared for how cold the water was!! Very, very, fresh!! We did see a dingo along the way but he wasn't really interested in us ... thankfully. After lunch at the camper we set off again to travel to Hermannsburg (an Aboriginal community) where Albert Namatjira was born and did his paintings. We had planned on staying there but the camping area was actually more like Stalag 13 than a caravan park. The gates were locked and there was a wire fence with barbed wire around the top. Easy to get a key to get in from the general store but ........ thought it was better to push on the extra 130 km back to Alice. Settled in very nicely here for a couple of nights. Tomorrow we are doing the touristy things around Alice and visiting the local art galleries.