Day 15 – Alice Springs
A coldish start to the day. After breakfast drove out of town to the John Flynn memorial rock. It is a replica of one of the Devils Marbles. Originally one of the real Devils Marbles had been  used but it was returned; diplomatically sensitive decision as the marbles are sacred to local aboriginal people in that area.

From there we continued driving west to Simpson’s Gap.

After parking we took the short walk alongside a dry creek bed into the gap.

Quite spectacular. A small pool made for some good photos.

Back to the car and on to Standley Chasm. On arrival we parked and went into the kiosk to pay a park fee. That being done we started our walk along the trail to the chasm.

Quite a few others were doing the same and the numbers increased once we were at the end of the chasm.

A sign indicated continuing was forbidden as further on was a sacred aboriginal area.

We took some photos before starting the return trip along the trail. Along the way we came to a side track which was part of section 3 of the Larapinta Trail. We had heard if you went up this section of track you would be able to have a different view of the chasm. After a quick chat we decided to give it a go so up the steps we went.

Along the way we had excellent views in all directions.

However the climb was taking us a bit of time. This wouldn’t have been a problem except that we had booked ourselves later in the afternoon onto a trip to the Kangaroo Sanctuary. So we took a quick climb to one more viewpoint.

After that we made the decision to head back down. At the bottom of the path we rejoined the main path.

Back in the carpark we grabbed our picnic lunch and ate in the picnic area in the shade. As time was marching on we drove back into Alice Springs and gathered a few things for our next experience, a night at the Kangaroo Sanctuary. You can read about this wonderful experience in my next post!