Our Kakadu farewell was more like 'abandon ship!' as we fled down the Stuart Highway at 130 km per hour doing almost 1500 kilometres in 3 days.

A late afternoon stop in Katherine for fuel, food and water, plus the all important pickup of a carton of wine won at the Katherine show, and then we set the compass to south. The sun settled behind the horizon as we pulled up on the Gowrie Airstrip to camp for the night.

Gowrie Airstrip was the location my Grandpa was based during the Second World War doing maintenance on the planes defending against the Japanese onslaught. We woke to a gorgeous warm morning and circled the airstrip and surrounds for a wake up run before packing up and heading further south. The airstrip and the maze of service roads were in surprisingly good condition with some of the road seal still in reasonable condition after 70 years, albeit covered in a forest of gums and anthills.

The long drive south allowed us to take in the subtle changes in the landscape changing from dry eucalyptus woodland with towering anthills in the north, slowly transitioning to low level rolling scrub plains revealing the much missed horizon. The sky and crisp edged horizon appeared to end abruptly at the worlds end.

Our second Stuart Highway stop was the unique Banka Banka with camel and donkey feeding to keep the kids interested. Theo's confidence had ramped up after a great run of friends in the north, and was on a mission to find more friends to play with. A family of 3 kids heading towards Darwin pulled in late in the afternoon, and Theo immediately proceeded to make friends with 'I'm Theo (pro. S'eo)', followed by a hurried request of 'I need my soccer ball / dump truck / more cars.' The play extended well into the night, resulting in some very exhausted children.

Another long driving day, lunch at the Devils Marbles, and a quick hop, step and a jump over Barrow Creek for a late arrival into Alice Springs, 600 km later. Our arrival in Alice was a positive for the kids as a family of 5 kids adopted Theo for the duration of our stay, but there was something unsettling in the air. The petty crime and security measures were the most extreme we had experienced with lock down at 8pm. Night temperatures were dropping to a shiveringly cold 2 degrees overnight, the humidity had gone from 80% to 0% resulting in cracked lips and bleeding hands, and we had had a run of things continuously breaking on us, something new every day.

The back door of the Prado had been smashed and was rattling incessantly after being accidentally flung open while driving, the canvas on the camper ripped out of the seals on one corner, somehow the glass hob in our cooktop smashed, curtain hooks ripped out, the turbo on the Prado started to make ominous sounds, but for us, the sticks that broke the camels back was Bern's Aldi running belt ripped, and my $3 Mambo thongs popped a plug.

It was the first real time on the trip where it was all feeling too hard, and that quitting felt like a real option. We brain stormed some alternatives including fly somewhere new, sell everything and house sit, or move to Japan. Luckily, a few clear days camping in the depths of the nearby national parks reinvigorated our souls. The trip goes on.

The drive east out of Alice show-cased the extreme forces that were active 300 million years ago when two tectonic plates collided and folded solid rock like plasticine, and pushed new mountains towards the sky. The remnants of this gigantic ancient mountain range remains, although significantly eroded, leaving layers of rock reaching for the stars, and ancient rivers carved through the joints and faults. The result is a 600 km long range of mountains with magnificent gorges, gaps and canyons sprinkled along its length, in the midst of apparently never ending flat desert country.

We arrived at Trephina Gorge in the soft afternoon light just in time to set up and hike the Gorge Loop following the jagged shear cliffs of the gorge and returning via the dry sandy river bed. As the sun settled behind the mountains the Gorge showed its true colours with tufts of scattered spinifex, blue mallie spread like a carpet, and wirey ghost gums procariously perched from the cracks and joints in the red sandstone.

A very cold night in our canvas camper trailer gave us a snap reminder of what cold is like. Two degrees is too cold to just wait for the day to warm you up, especially when the day starts with an Archie style wake up call well before sunrise. We boiled a lot of water for tea that morning!

An early morning hike up the Panarama circuit got the blood pumping and even Theo had his climbing legs back. The top of the mountain revealed the red rocks of the gorge glowing in the morning sunshine. To finish our East MacDonnell Ranges exploration, we headed further east to discover the old abandoned mining town of Arltunga (how people survived out here in the 1800's is beyond me), and a visit to the Ross River Station for an afternoon icy pole and a climb up the local mountain to see the countryside. The path ran out at the top, so some bush bashing through the spikey spinifex was required to make our way back down to the homestead.

The West MacDonnell Ranges was next on the agenda after a quick fuel up in Alice. We managed a visit to old friends Rohan and Alex who moved to Alice 10 years ago, and even saw Uncle Ross again being in town for work.

Ormiston Gorge was a lovely host with the majestic cliff walls towering high above the crisp waters of the gorge. Swimming was a challenge, but was a welcome relief from the hot afternoon heat. We spent a few days out of contact with civilisation doing some amazing walks up and around the gorge, and a few longer runs into the Pound. We even had the funky little Spinifex Pigeon's give us a visit, probably the coolest bird I have seen!

We headed further south out of the West MacDonnell Ranges into the Finke Gorge National Park and towards Palm Valley. We baulked slightly at the sign that read "SEVERE 4WD ACCESS ONLY" but headed on un-phased. A big bowl of bull dust and a few soft sand patches at the river crossings almost had us caught, but we made it in safely to the camp ground.

This place was isolation at its best. The coming and going of various hard-core campers was all we saw for 4 days. Covered in bull dust, the kids played peacefully, building roads, airports, kicking soccer balls and not wanting for any technology, partly because Bern and I weren't constantly checking Facebook.

We completed some absolutely spectacular hikes through the surrounding eroded sandstone mountains, canyons and plateaus including the majestic Palm Valley. The drive into Palm Valley, another 6km past our campsite was something else. Driving along hard rock river bed, and up and over boulders to make our way to the start of the walks. We stayed on a few extra days, just to take in the magical sunset, and trail run some of the tracks a few more times.

We left very much back on track, rejuvenated and ready for more adventures, if not extremely dirty and in need of a washing machine and hot shower.