Scenery, en route and Northern Territory

The first stage of our journey was to get to Adelaide and board the Ghan train to take us to Darwin in the Northern Territory, with stops at Alice Springs and Katherine en route. Although all haste was the order of the day, our necessary stops afforded us some delightful encounters with the beautiful River Murray, part of Australia's greatest river system, starting at Euston (Vic):

and next at Renmark (SA), where our restful pelican companions paid us no heed:

First stop on the Ghan was Alice Springs (NT) - if you have very good eyesight, you may be able to see our train in the upper right hand side, very long, stretching off the picture:Next stop was Katherine (NT), where we enjoyed a canoe trip on the Katherine River - well , at least till I accidentally tipped Jean out :-)

From Darwin we had to backtrack, past Katherine, to see Dr Sam, our Fiji friend, who took us to the beautiful Bitter Springs, which bubble up from the earth at a constant 32 degrees, great for swimming:

or just finding your own peaceful corner:

After Mataranka we retraced our route through Katherine and across the Northern Territory towards Western Australia. We were heading for the famed Bungle Bungles, but en route we were told we must visit Keep River National Park, still in NT, which was described as like a mini-Bungle Bungles, and it certainly lived up to that, while also having added charms of its own.

Disappointingly, we weren't able to see the famous Wandjina aboriginal rock art in Keep River (closed for cultural reasons) but there were other interesting mementoes of aboriginal presence in the area:

Our stay in Keep River was memorable for beautiful bush walks and scenery, and for a pleasant campfire evening hosted by our ranger, at which we met again with our New Zealand/Guernsey friends from the Ghan, Karen and Dave Wilson.