Mereenie Loop, Hermannsburg and Palm Valley

On Friday, September 23rd, we hit the dirt road! It was day 7 of our Red Centre Tour and we prepared by slightly reducing the tire pressure of our car. This way, we don't bounce as much on the gravel roads and the driving is much more pleasant. It actually worked well and we were able to drive the Mereenie Loop without any difficulties at 80 or 90 km/h. The distance to Hermannsburg was just under 200 km. At first, we thought: Oh my God, this will take forever on the unsealed road. But in the end, it wasn't that bad because it was such a beautiful route! We left our rest area very early (before 7:30 am) and could really enjoy how the sun became stronger and the colors became more intense. There were amazing mountains to admire, flat hills, lush meadows, and bush landscapes. We even saw wild horses! It was truly a dreamy route.

The last kilometers before Hermannsburg were a bit different because they seem to be paving the road there and you drive right through the construction site. In Germany, such a road would be closed, but there is no alternative there, so you just drive past the rollers, graders, and trucks. Quite strange :D

Once we arrived in Hermannsburg, we freshened up first and then explored the Historic Precinct. It's an old mission station where you can see various buildings and equipment. But it would have cost $11 for admission, so we just went to the Tea House instead, where you could get in for free. It was so quaint in there and we even found German song lyrics on the piano. Since they are known for their apple strudel, we got one of those and also a pasty. It was pretty delicious :)

Afterwards, we continued our journey to Palm Valley, which is located in the Finke Gorge National Park. It's a valley where, due to the special moist conditions, you can find, among other things, the rare Red Cabbage Palm. Other palms and ferns also grow there, which are not found in the central part of Australia due to the climate. The drive there was marked as a 4WD route and it was quite rocky and sandy, as it followed the dry riverbed of the Finke River or went directly through it.

Just before the camping area in Palm Valley, there was a short walk to a lookout, which looked quite nice. We climbed up there and basically had a second lunch. Great view from up there! Then we went back down and continued our way by car. We read on Wikicamps before that the road to the camping area is still pretty good and the route from there to the car park for the walks in the valley can only be driven with a good 4WD. And we were just like: Oh my God, what will come next. And it came much more than we thought: steep, rocky steps, sand, gravel, rocky riverbed, and water. THAT was an adventure. While driving, we thought more than once if we would make it further and sometimes we couldn't even see where the path actually leads. But we somehow overcame every obstacle and made it to the "car park" for the walks, which was actually just a slightly flatter rock slab in the middle of the riverbed. That was truly off-road! But it was also really fun, and because Andi drove there, I could already look forward to the return trip :D

After the exciting drive, we first went on the calming Arankaia Walk. It was 2 km long and led in a loop first on a sandstone plateau along the gorge and then down in the valley along the river. We could see many different plants, it was totally quiet, the birds were chirping, and the wind was rustling in the grass. Super beautiful. I think we took 1.5 hours for the walk and then we drove back on the off-road route to the camping area because it was already after 5pm. The camping area in Palm Valley is the first bush camp we've seen that has showers. The water is heated with solar energy, so there's even hot water, although limited. Pretty cool and I took advantage of that right away. Andi wanted to take a shower the next morning.

Actually, we had planned to have baked potatoes for dinner again and collected firewood specifically before we drove into the national park, but there were only communal fire pits with slanted walls. You couldn't put anything in there, so we made our potatoes as fried potatoes on the grill plate along with zucchini. But it took forever. Quite strange because it went much faster on Andi's birthday in Kakadu. But what can you do, raw potatoes are just not that great. So we had dinner a bit later and then went straight to bed.

In the middle of the night, I woke up (probably because of my stuffy nose) and heard rain on the car. I thought: Darn, my towels are still outside. But I was too lazy to bring them in. When we woke up in the morning, it was still raining. So we stayed in bed for a bit until the rain stopped, quickly converted our car from bed to vehicle, and sat back in the car for breakfast. It started raining again and so we sat in the car in the rain, listening to nice music and having breakfast. It was somehow very cozy :)

Of course, we hoped that the rain wouldn't continue, as we wanted to continue our journey that day and see many beautiful places. But we were lucky and it only rained in the valley. As soon as we were back in Hermannsburg, refueled there, and then continued towards Tnorala, the weather was nice again.

By the way, after all the 4WD adventures, we wanted to increase our tire pressure again so that we don't consume as much fuel on the normal paved road. We stopped by the roadside and wanted to use our air compressor. But it didn't work! Totally stupid once again. Then a nice couple immediately stopped and asked if we needed help. They were German too and they had an air compressor with them that we could use. It was pretty dumb that ours didn't work because we actually relied on it. Now we have to see if we can somehow find a purchase receipt and make a warranty claim out of it... Our previous vehicle still had that working! Really annoying. When we inflated the tires, the man in the couple also noticed that we had two different wheels on the back. We had already noticed that, but we didn't attach much importance to it because our previous owner drove with it all the time. But the man said that we should have that checked and also check what spare tire we have and whether there is enough air in it. Unfortunately, we couldn't just take it out at that moment because our bed was on top of it, but now we have another thing to take care of. Our rear tires are essentially the same, but one number in the article number is different. This number indicates how much load the tire can withstand. And this is lower for one tire than for the other, which is why you can inflate the one tire more than the other. No idea which of our previous owners messed that up. Now we'll check about the tires when we're back in Alice Springs.

I'll tell you about the last days of our tour in the next entry :)