I almost missed the sunrise on the pillar as we had a very windy night after we went to bed and the fly on the camper was at an awkward angle to the wind and kept waking us up during the early morning hours. We also had the sunrise side of the camper closed up due to the very bright moon that came up and I did not wake early enough. The pillar looked great in the sunrise as we packed for the trip out. We got on the road before the other couple and saw them in the distance as we stopped for a photo or two on top of the Charlotte Range.

After sunrise on the pillar

Campsite at the pillar with Castle Rock behind.

Charlotte Range, pillar between antenna and snorkel

The trip out seemed much quicker without stopping for wood collection and ice creams. Back in Alice we fueled up and headed for the West MacDonnell ranges the last section of our Alice Springs adventure before moving on. Driving along we decided to head for Palm Valley and setup camp there for a few days and explore the area. Another early ish arrival at camp (4PM) and some ‘chillaxing’ by the river on a nice grassed area behind the camper.

Palm Valley site, river at end of grassed area (with water)

During the late afternoon and evening the couple next to us got out the guitars and sung a bit – no problem even though they were pretty crap. After a while she got out a small harp and played it. After a while that just got a bit too much as she seemed to be learning and playing the same bits over and over again. There is only so much harp playing you can take at any time. Sharon got the MP3 out and drowned it out with some John Butler until it went away!