16Oct08
In the morning I was very excited to see a pair of Major Mitchell Cockatoos! I've been looking for these for awhile since reading about them in my bird book. They are spectacular birds with white bodies, pink under the wings and a very showy crest that has red and yellow stripes. Have I mentioned how much I love parrots yet?? The camp had lots of birds including butcherbirds and our old friend, "santa crow" who goes "ho-ho-ho" in a strange strangled voice.
The actual Palm Valley trailhead was a few kms up the road, but the "road" was a very rough 4wd track down a dry riverbed. I thought it was great fun - but I wasn't driving! Several times we had to stop and investigate on foot to find the best path over the rocks. The Landcruiser is a lot tougher than we give her credit :)
The drive was worth every rattle - Palm Valley is an amazing oasis of prehistoric palm trees in a lovely sandstone gorge. We took a 5km loop walk that takes you through the dry scrub and spinifex on the ridge above the gorge before dropping down into it and following the riverbed back to the trailhead. Once along the rivedbed you walk between towering red cliffs on one side and swaying palm trees on the other. I think it may be my favorite spot in Australia so far. I'll let the photos speak for themselves...
After that we drove to nearby Hermannsburg to eat the famous apple strudel that Lotti and Heike told us about. Hermannsburg is an aboriginal town with an historic center that used to be a Lutheran mission. We ate strudel in the cafe (very good) before checking out the buildings.
The older couple who live onsite and run the place were very amusing. First they insisted that we watch a short film from the 40's about Albert Namatjira, an aboriginal artist from Hermannsburg who became fairly famous for his western-style watercolor landscapes of the MacDonnell Ranges. The film was quite interesting and I really liked his paintings, although sadly his success did not make for a happy life. I bought a print of one that depicts a large red river gum tree in the foreground with rocky bluffs in the distance - a scene that he painted many versions of and that I'd been trying to capture with my camera for days!
Hermannsburg also has a nice gallery of original paintings, including two Namatjiras plus many paintings in the same style done by his descendants. But our favorite part of the visit was when the proprietor proceeded to point out dozens of hidden images in the Namatjira paintings, including some that were so racy he would only show Justin and I had to leave the room! haha... we could only see about half of what he pointed out and I have no idea whether any of the imagery was deliberate or not. Now I can't wait to hang up my print and invite guests to find subliminal content.
Palm Valley photoset
Hermannsburg and Alice Springs photoset
2 comments:
Hilarious! Not much to do there in Hermannsburg, eh?
Carey
haha - yep. Hermannsburg seems to be pretty slow. You'll have to ask Justin about the "secret images" he got to see ;)
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