Aus wandering

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Aus wandering Traveler
Tjoritja/West Macdonnell ranges
May 19, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C
We finally made it to the red centre 😍 After re-stocking some supplies in Alice Springs, we headed out for a beautiful week of epic bushwalking and camping in the stunning mountain range west of the town. We were lucky enough to also see the Ghost Gum Blues Fest out there too for a night super fun music, and some rock climbing with some beautiful new people we met. The night of camping up on the last mountain top we walked up was freezing and unbelievably windy, hence the slightly sad looking photo 😅 we were very happy to be back in the comfort of the car after being in the tent for a few nights!Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
East Macdonnell’s and Rainbow Valley
May 30, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C
After staying in Alice for a lovely few nights to meet up with Pete’s folks, we headed out to the East Mac’s to explore, and then down to Rainbow Valley on our way toward Uluṟu.

Lots more stunning and spectacular red rock, it’s all we’ve been seeing for the past week and half and we still aren’t sick of it yet!Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Uluru and Kata Tjuta
June 1, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C
Despite being incredibly touristy and feeling a bit ‘commercialised’ at times, Uluru and Kata Tjuṯa were still breathtaking. The base walk around Uluṟu and the Valley of the Winds walk around Kata Tjuta were some of the best day hikes we had both been on for a long while. The spiritual significance that both of these places have for the Anangu people is palpable as the sheer size and texture of the rocks are hard to describe in words!
Both places have been requested that photographs not be taken in certain areas, in particular for Kata Tjuta which was believed to be a special place for Men’s business.Read more
Stunning photos! [Amelia]
6/19/23Reply
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Aus wandering Traveler
Watarrka/Kings Canyon
June 4, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
Meeting up again with Pete’s mum and stepdad, we had the most beautiful days walking part of the Giles Track and also the Rim walk which runs around the canyon. The canyon itself is unbelievable (with sections looking like its surface has been smeared like paint or cake icing) and then the dome-like rock formations everywhere in the surrounding range made us feel like we were walking around in a science fiction movie set!
The day was complete with Pete finding a gorgeous blood-red Desert pea flowerRead more
Wowwwww!!!! It's all beautiful places and amazing 👏 [Ghie]
6/12/23Reply
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Aus wandering Traveler
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Daly Waters
June 7, 2023 in Australia
As we headed north from finishing up our time in the red centre, we did a big day of driving up the Stuart Highway. We pulled into Daly Waters pub (which is in the middle of nowhere!) to get some good barramundi as recommended by Pete’s mum from when she was there 30 years ago.
As we pulled into park across the pub, the gearbox seized up on Pete and the car was stuck in locked and we were stuck in some poor guy’s driveway! Thankfully we were treated with lots of kindness and support from the locals and staff who helped us access to internet to try to sort out the problem. Turns out we needed to be towed 280kms to the mechanic in Katherine for a new gearbox ☹️! We had a day or so to wait for the mechanics which meant we could check out all the quirky delights of Daly Waters pub and the owners vintage car collection and friendly farm animals that wander round the pub 😁Read more
Traveler Buy anything, Lou?
6/29/23Reply
Traveler Haha we did! Sadly not a bra, just barramundi
6/29/23Reply
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Aus wandering Traveler
Barunga festival
June 9, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
Despite the tow-truck driver being late and nearly missing our deadline to get the car into the mechanic’s before they closed for the long weekend, and that he nearly dropped our car off the back of his truck, we made it in time and headed off to Barunga festival on the bus!
This was a really awesome community festival celebrating indigenous sports, music, art and dance. We saw some awesome AFL from the local teams, and some really amazing music, speeches and dance in the evenings. We also participated in a local tour of the area that was hosted by the school children of barunga - this was very cute. I did a basket weaving workshop made from the native sand palm, very tricky indeed! Such a great time was had! Even without the car comforts and Pete getting some festival belly, there was no showering available - hence Pete’s dirty feet!😅Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Katherine
June 11, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
We hitched a ride back into Katherine with this lovely, eccentric European couple and stayed at the local hostel while we waited for the car to get repaired and for Pete’s upset stomach to recover. Lots of reading, eating and a few movies in bed for a couple of days :)Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Robin Falls
June 16, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
Car is fixed and we are ready to roll 🚗 ! Quick stopover at this awesome free camp at Robin Falls for a touch of climbing and a swim. We saw a snake that Dad told me was a green tree snake (funny name for a snake that colour!). On our way in we saw some of the grass fire burns that are so common up here, often intentionally done to reduce fuel risk for bigger fires. But still pretty sketchy to see out in the middle of nowhere and seemingly unmanned!Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Daly River
June 16, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
We drive a few hours west to find our WWOOFing spot for the next week or so. These guys run a multi-purpose property with lots of their own animals, and have other ventures like catching water buffalo and running a small caravan park. We saw loads of crocodiles, chased after water buffalo in their DIY car catchers and went fishing on the local warf! We also helped them concrete half their shed and with a bunch of other jobs which they were really grateful for and we were happy to do some work for a change from the tourist life. We very much felt like we got quite the ‘outback’ experience with watching the owner and his son prepare their own meat from a few of their sheep, and getting to see how a rural NT property is run. And I was very happy to get some dog love from the sweetest Labrador on the whole planet! 😆❤️Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Litchfield National Park
June 26, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 34 °C
Next was the Tabletop Track in Litchfield National Park. A 40km+ hike we did over 4 days which took us through so many amazing waterfalls and swimming holes. It got damn hot at times which made our swims all the more refreshing and welcomed!😚Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Mary River NP/Mamukala wetlands
June 30, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
On our way into Kakadu we stopped in at the bird billabong in Mary River NP, and also Mamukala wetlands to see some vibrant bird life. At bird billabong we could sit in a inconspicuous viewing platform to watch the spectacle of bird play happening out on the water. We saw white-breasted sea eagles, loads of whistling kites and whistling ducks, great egrets, jacanas and many more bird species. We learned later in our time in Kakadu that the wetlands play a crucial role in the ecology of the park, providing an immense amount of nutrients that then feed the rivers and surrounding vegetation. The big swarm in the video was an enormous group of whistling ducks that Pete spooked 😅Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Ubirr/Nanguluwur/Burrungkuy
June 30, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
Next was the incredible rock art sites of Ubirr , Nanguluwur and Burrungkuy in Kakadu’s eastern side. Some of Ubirr’s paintings are thought to be over 40,000 years old, and the more modern paintings depict contact with European settlers. They were shown with paintings of rifles and white men with boots and their hands in their pockets. At Burrungkuy, the sacred rock shelters for the Bininj people, there is even a painting of a sailing ship! With some paintings here thought to date back at least 20,000 years, most were in the most recent 2000 year period as modern paintings are often painted over older ones. These places show the x-ray style of painting that was characteristic of the top end of NT, which showed the internal organs of the animals they hunted and liked to eat. There were also paintings that depicted ancestral stories, often containing cultural knowledge about appropriate customs such as the proper time of year to eat certain foods and kinship laws.Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls
July 3, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
We started heading south from the rock art sites and move into some incredible stone country. Here, with dramatic escarpments that create some of the spectacular waterfalls of Jim Jim falls and Twin falls, we spent 4 hours each day climbing up the escarpment to see the great views down below. For Twin falls we could only swim up the top but we were able to swim in the icy plunge pool at the bottom of Jim Jim falls🥶 the grandiose walls are 200m on either side!Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Yellow water sunrise cruise
July 5, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C
We got up before sunrise to do the cruise along the Yellow Water wetlands. A beautiful spot in Kakadu for seeing lots of wildlife in action! This enormous 5m crocodile came right up to the boat in what the tour guide called, ‘the best croc moment this season!’😂. We also got to see lots of the native birdlife including whistling ducks, magpie geese, jacana’s, spoonbills, egrets, herons, jabirus, Burdekin ducks, terns and sea eagles. The wetlands looked so beautiful during that early morning light, this was definitely a highlight of our trip through Kakadu✨Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Maguk
July 5, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C
After our sunrise cruise, we headed out to Maguk, another beautiful gorge along a 4WD track in southern Kakadu. We had a lovely swim but being school holidays, the place was packed so we were swimming our way back to shore when a 50 year old man jumped off the top into the water of the waterfall but hit his foot on the rocks below.

Pete was the first on the scene and helped him swim to shore where he diagnosed him with a broken foot and then helped hobble him, with the help of his son, the 1km back to the carpark. At times the track was very bouldering and hard to hobble him through, so someone donated a pool noodle and Pete floated him parts of the way 😂 the kind rangers came up with a boat that Pete and I and the rangers paddled the remaining way to the carpark. The fellow then sent us pictures of his foot from the CT scan and it shows just how smashed up his foot really was! Poor bloke, he managed very well despite what must have been an immensely painful experience! Moral of the story is do not jump from waterfalls!Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Kakadu watering holes
July 6, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
After our midday excitement of helping with the medical incident, we then went on and explored a few more of Kakadu’s special watering places including Fern gully, motorcar falls, Upper and lower moline and a few more which were lovely and we did about 15km of walking that day too which made the swims feel all the more refreshing.Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Umbrawarra gorge
July 6, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C
After Kakadu, we headed out to Umbrawarra gorge for a night. This place was a lovely little gorge that had a large group of Rainbow bee-eaters bird taking an afternoon swim in the gorge which was beautiful to see.Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Butterfly farm at Batchelor
July 7, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 34 °C
Next on the agenda is some WWOOFing at Batchelor Butterfly farm which also had bunnies, pigs, poultry, donkeys and sheep. This quirky place was such a gorgeous place for Pete and I to change our fast-paced trekking and tourist movements for some farm work and getting to know some quirky locals. We had a lovely time here helping feed animals and working in the kitchen. The owner was the most loveable madman 😆🌈 we both had a ball here.Read more
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Katherine Gorge
July 21, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
After I got back from a short trip to Sydney for a family event, whilst Pete stayed back at the butterfly farm and kept WWOOFing, we then headed south for our next adventure.

Before we started our 5 day hike through Nitmiluk National park, we decided to do a half day kayak down Katherine Gorge. Such stunning scenery, we would’ve loved to have explored more up the gorge system but didn’t have time for more. It was so great to view the gorge from the waterside as usually we are scuttling around the cliff edges!Read more
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Aus wandering Traveler
Jatbula trail
July 22, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 29 °C
This hike turned out to be one of our favourite activities we had done in NT. Only 62km, which was completed over 5 days, on mostly flat ground, which housed the most beautiful waterfalls, rivers and natural pools at each campsite. Such a treat. It was also incredibly rewarding from all the beautiful fellow hikers we got to know over the course of the walk, I’ve never made such great bonds from a bushwalk before so it made the hike all the more special. This walk started as a trail for the Jawyon people, then kindly opened up to travellers as the local people wanted to share this beautiful country with the rest of Australia. There were a few rock art sites along the walk which made it extra special.Read more
TravelerIs this the best country in the world or what? Spectacular scenery and you are obviously having the experience of a lifetime. Stay safe.
8/29/23Reply
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Aus wandering Traveler
Garma
July 29, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
Wow, what an experience Garma was.
Garma is one of Australia’s biggest and most publicised Indigenous event. Over 2000 people come to the site in East Arnhem Land for 4 days of workshops, music, dance, presentations and learning about Yolgnu culture and traditions.
We arrived onsite at the beautiful festival site near Nhulunbuy with 100 fellow vollies 5 days before the festival started. We were then split up into different squads and put on a variety of jobs like erecting tents, helping putting up lighting, landscaping, cleaning over 1000 chairs and the like. Within our squads we got to know our teams really well and formed some incredible friendships, there is certain type of bonding and comradery that’s comes from sharing full days of work in the hot sun doing repetitive and, at times, menial work. As well as sharing all our mealtimes together, there was so much laughter and quality conversation - it very much filled our cups to the brim!

Then the festival started and we swapped into our festival roles, I was on the info desk and Pete was on Rapid Response team (I.e. fixing all the stuff that gets broken or needs attending to). Outside our working hours, we saw lots of incredible traditional dancing, as well great music by William Barton, Kee’ahn, King Stingray and more and amazing cultural discussions and talks. It was so beautiful to see that despite the many challenges that the community faces, Yolgnu culture is very strong and they love to share it with the outside world.
It was then all over in a whirlwind and everyone was heading home after 12 days of learning, companionship, cultural immersion and good, wholesome labour 😁 it was such an awesome awesome experience, we couldn’t recommend the volunteering at Garma highly enough!
(I was enjoying myself so much that I often forgot to take photos, so some of these are from fellow vollies)Read more
TravelerThat is so fabulous! What a brilliant experience. And… your photos are magnificent-are they from your phone or a “real” camera? So good to get your report as I haven’t seen anything since July 6th. Could be me!
8/29/23Reply
TravelerHi Ro, it really was such a brilliant experience! Sadly most of the really amazing photos on here, weren’t actually mine but some of our volunteer colleagues. I don’t know how they made them so good as I believe they are just on a phone, but apparently they used ‘portrait’ mode. Hope that helps 😁 and the reason you probably haven’t seen anything for a while as I was a bit slack in updating the blog (😅), and we also had lots of patchy reception but I’m updating it now finally!
8/29/23Reply
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Aus wandering Traveler
Keep River National Park
August 12, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C
After Garma finished up, we did some big days in the car driving from East Arnhemland through to the NT/WA border, where we start to see the odd-looking Boab trees! Before crossing over, we popped into Keep River National park which is 3km before the border. The Mirriwoong and Gajirrabeng people are the traditional custodians of this place. This gorgeous little national park doesn’t get nearly the same traffic as the famous others close by but it had very similar rock formations to Purnululu (the Bungle Bungles) as it was created in the same geological formation. We got back into life on the road again, post-Garma, with some lovely bushwalks through this area at sunset.Read more
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Lake Argyle
August 13, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
A quick stop in Lake Argyle led us to a very beautiful view after a very hot walk in the sun 🥵 but thankfully we could swim!
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Purnululu (Bungle Bungles)
August 13, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
Next on the list was the famous Purnululu National Park, south of Kununurra. We headed down the Fitzroy, and then the 1.5 hours of dirt road in pretty appalling condition (it was only 50km a or so of dirt but took us that long!) to get to the Bungles. This National Park has its reputation for a reason, it is really spectacular!
We got into the park just before dark so headed up to the northern section to see Echidna Chasm and the incredible sunset light up the rock.
The next day we headed south to the start the 2 night bushwalk up into the gorge system of Piccaninny Creek and the 5 Fingers Gorges. The ‘beehive’-like rock dome structures with their organic, flowing outlines that went on for kilometres and were so pleasing to the eye. It looked like a ginormous pottery sculpture. As we walked up further into the gorge system, the rock turned into a escarpment walls 200m high on either side. We only saw 2 other people in the three days we were hiking in there. Camping in there felt incredibly surreal, like we were in an Indiana Jones movie😆 Despite it being really hot and walking on lots of sand at points, this was one of our favourite experiences on the whole trip!Read more
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Gibb River Road
August 17, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
Our Gibb River Road experience was a week and a bit long drive along the famous corrugated road that is known for its numerous beautiful gorges and waterholes. We started at a lagoon famous for its birdlife as seen in the video at the end with the sweet little Jacanas that walk on the lilies.
Some of our favourite spots were Emma Gorge (photo 1), the walk to El Questro (2), the lakeside camp at Pentecost river -even though we saw a huge croc right up close! (3), Manning Gorge (4), Adcock Gorge (5), Bell Gorge (6), Tunnel Creek (7), Galvan’s Gorge (6), and then also just driving along the ruggard terrain of the Kimberley (6 & 7).

It was hot and touristy but very epic with lots of active bushwalking and cooling-off swims which we love 💛Read more
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