This stone house has recently undergone a restoration and is well worth a visit. It was built by a local business man who had the stone mason come up from Armidale for the job.

The museum here also has some pretty impressive fossils from around the area - the actual fossils not a cast. A almost complete aquatic predator (forget the name).

We were admitted for less than the advertised price - pretty sure she charged us as seniors, not sure whether to be happy or not.

The Min Min interpretive display was worth it as well.

Remember these?

Not sure I have ever seen a full set before.

I was surprised by how much bitumen there was heading out of Boulia. By the time we got to the border we had been across our fair share of gravel.

We were going to camp at Pinnacle Rise Campsite but as it was early and the road had been pretty good we decided to push on. Could have been a mistake as the road deteriorated and was pretty bad to our overnight stop at Marshal River, near Jervios Station.

At our stop we discovered we had a gas leak. Traced it to the connection to the hot water system. The copper pipe had cracked at the flared fitting 🙁

Even after checking out the gas leak, I still managed to find time to practice taking star trail photos.

Even though it was Friday we managed to get to Alice Springs early enough to make a phone call and find a gas fitter who would redo the connection on a Friday afternoon 🙂

Hermannsburg was a Lutheran mission. Originally it was run directly from Germany before it came under an Australian Diocese - Adelaide I think.

At one stage there was a fully operational tannery and a leather products industry. This is the old tannery.

A plaque in front of the stockman's house explained that when the government took over the mission they sold all the cattle and put the workmen on the dole.

There was even a mortuary at the rear of the church.

We did get here, to the Palm Valley campground. We had no problems getting in even though the track crosses the Finke River several times. The river is very dry and all the sand/gravel is packed hard.

The camp ground is great, flushing toilets, and even hot showers, if you get in early enough. They are solar and not really suitable for the number of people at this time of year.

Shot is on the Palm Valley Walk.

The palm trees from on top of the gorge.The nearest similar palms are at Lawn Hill gorge.

To get to the Palm Valley Walk you need to negotiate a 4x4 drive track. There are a couple of rocky jump ups that I was nervous about, but after walking them and selecting a route, I engaged low range and made it up.

Here is "Clifford" in the parking area with all the other real 4x4.

I was surprised on the way out to see the number of vehicles parked before the last hardest section - go "Clifford".

Major Mitchell, are they Galahs or Cockatoos? Any way I was quite excited to spot this pair in the tree just above our campsite. I didn't get a shot with the colourful crest up 🙁

I did the Mpaara Loop Walk taking in Kalaranga Lookout. The loop was a bit of a mountain goat track, but very enjoyable with great views and interesting rock formations.

About 40km of pretty rough corrugations to get in but worth it.

I don't think it is a valley. The white fragile sandstone erodes much quicker than the harder red sandstone and consequently undercuts it.

We think the left side looks like Fred Basset - don't remember Fred Basset the cartoon  character. I only remember seeing him in print.