A picture paints a thousand words - only sometimes!

Inquisitive Visitors

Some photos tell the story exactly how it happened.  Like our first photo, yep, 3 camels ambling into our camp ground, not much more to say actually, except 'Thanks' to our kind neighbours who zipped up the annex as they'd heard the bull likes to poke his nose into annexes and see what's going on.  That's one of the great things about this camp spot, very relaxed and people have your back. People know when you are heading out for the day, where you are off to and are keen to see how your day went when you arrive back. Really, they're just as inquisitive as the resident camels!

View from the rim of Palm Valley

We headed out at 7.30am for the 133km trip to Palm Valley.  I couldn't understand why someone said we'd need the whole day.  When we had completed 113km and the sign said '20 km to go, hard 4WD allow 3 hours' I started to figure it out.  I would have included photos of the slow climb over the rocks, through the dry river bed but I couldn't fein relaxed, hold quietly onto the the seat and take photos all at the same time!!  Actually on the return trip I did start to relax and begin to understand why some people find it enjoyable.  Hopefully this is just the first of many trips.

A quiet spot for lunch

We walked around the 1.5km rim of Palm Valley before heading down into the valley itself.  Although the valley is full of amazing palms I still found myself focusing on the gums that managed to grown along with them. The rock faces and caves were also beautiful.  We then drove our way back along the most rugged 1.6km which took about 30 minutes and sat quietly in the shade to feast not only on the packed lunch but on the stillness and beauty around us.  By the end of lunch 4 other 4WD vehicles and their occupants had pulled up and wandered over.  So much for the quiet!!

So off we went to try our luck at the 5km Mpaara Track (just a walk in the park for our Camino Friends).  We started off on a flat plain wandering along the long, dry sandy bed of the Finke River.  Before we knew it we'd started to amble over a few rocks and around a corner. Then we were heading up a rockier goats track and we were 50 minutes into the 2 hour walk.  Too far gone to turn back.  After a little rest we made it to the point in the ridge where I took this photo, we had scrambled our way from where the shadow lands in the valley to the left of the photo.  I was so excited with our achievement that I paid no heed to where Will was until I heard him say 'Don't worry about that photo, come check this out!'  So off I scrambled one more time onto another rock and Wow - the last time I felt this stunned I was standing on another rock, with another wonderful friend overlooking Kakado!

The view was unexpected and magnificent!! And the sense of achievement was wonderful.  The nerves stepped up a notch as Will wandered just one step closer to the edge - I could hardly stand without my legs wobbling just looking at how high we were and how rocky the way down was!!  It was just magnificent!!

So after spending some time soaking up the beauty and saying hello to a little lizard we headed down the other side of the ridge.  It was slow going and rocky and not my cup of tea at all - but once I'd got up there I had no choice except to do like you do in a 4WD - 'look ahead, plan your safest route and take it one slow move at a time'.  Thanks Will for your supportive words and supportive hands when needed. 

Photos will never capture the joy of the moment when we saw both what we had conquered and what we had found.