Hermannsburg 26 - 27 June 2006

Started early to fix a few little things with the motor home and collect the mail that is becoming much slower now. They said mail goes to Melbourne or Adelaide before coming to Alice. Did the food shopping and headed out to Hermannsburg, about 180 km from Alice. The road was fantastic in most places as it had recently been widened. When we arrived we found a typical Aboriginal community of run down housing but non-threatening. The camp grounds were in top order, very well maintained, securely fenced, and free laundry with hot water all for $11. Not many in that night but very shortly Heather discovered that Margaret, the “neighbour” (travelling with her husband John), was a work colleague from the Southern Region Aged Care Group. We had a lovely chat as we both stayed 2 nights. Emailed a photo back to work that we hear will be in our weekly rag. Hermannsburg is a former Lutheran mission that is now an Aboriginal community. In the morning we set off for Palm Valley. It was only an 18km trip, but it took us 90 minutes as the track was so rough! Most of the trip was driving along the Finke River, which varied between sand traps, boulders or rock shelves. But our little 4WD (Suzuki Grand Vitara) did an amazing job of coping with the track. Only problem is the low clearance, which we should be able to fix by raising it 2’’. Peter had the BEST time, but Heather thought it a bit HAIR RAISING!!!!! A few people coming out stopped to offer advice about the track!
Palm Valley was amazing, enveloped in remanent palm trees, small fig trees, citrus trees and cycads left over when the area was a tropical rainforest. The visual evidence of the age of our country is the single most outstanding aspect of the trip. Makes you feel like a single cell!