Erldunda to Glen Helen Gorge

Tuesday, we packed up the Karavan at a good hour as we were aiming for Glen Helen Resort on the Namatjira Drive, roughly west of Alice Springs by about 150 kilometres. So the day’s drive did total around 350 kilometres.
We said good bye to David and Merilyn as they moved on south while we went north and then west. As we left we spoke to some others we had been parked next to in Kings Canyon. They were originally from Goondiwindi and they knew of Andrew as well as him knowing them, too.
Our first stop was at Stuarts’s Well. The family of the man that opened up Kings Canyon moved to this location setting up a roadhouse and camping facility. Again, we caught up the “Chookman” all loaded up ready to head for his sometime hometown of Renmark in Victoria.
Next we moved along taking in the changing scenery. One can never really become bored in this area as the skyline is always changing, from flat to hilly to mountainous and everything in between.
After a few hours on the road we arrived in Alice Springs. We drove through, noting where the turnoff to the MacDonnell ranges known as Namatjira Drive. Eventually, we found a service station and refuelled even though we may have had plenty to go to Glen Helen Resort. In these areas it is always wise to refuel when you see a fuel stop. It may be a very long way to the next one.
After our refuel, we went into the Coles shopping complex and found a Cafe/Bakery that made a reasonable coffee. While there we purchased some sandwiches for our lunch later on.
Then we made way to Glen Helen Resort. It took us about two hours to get here. On arrival we booked in and found a site. The KKaravan has a different awning as the ground did not endear itself to the normal KK awning. It is a tarp’ with some little Dees attached to slide into the KK’s sail track. It is doing the job of giving us shade but it does flap around.
This resort is not a resort but a tired old place that charge exorbitant rates for a powered site, $30.00 per night! The buildings are quite run down and the ablution blocks are very ordinary. The sites are nothing but red dirt and stones. There is no useable water but that is not uncommon up here. If we knew better we could have camped elsewhere for very little.
As we finished our lunch, our new friends, Rowan and Karen with their boys arrived. We knew they were going to be here and we had parked beside them. The boys were excited to see us again.
Later in the cool of the afternoon, we wandered down to Glen Helen Gorge. It is about 1 kilometre from the campsite. There is a spectacularly scenic walk to get to it. Some of the walk is in the river bed which is both sandy and stony. When we arrived at the Gorge we were pleasantly surprised to see a large body of water in it. Some people were swimming but told us it was somewhat cold. There were some people climbing the sheer cliff face nearby. It is not for the faint hearted.

As the sun was by now set, it was time to have our nibbles and red wine. Karen and Rowan were busy with their boys so we imbibed on our own. Karen invited us to share Spaghetti bolognaise with them. So Karen and Prue organised dinner which was really nice and different. Another bottle of red wine was sourced from our stash for dinner. An exquisite evening with these lovely new friends.