Don’t you love planning your next trip? I do. I’m a bit of a researcher and love to read as much as I can about where we might go next. When we arrive at a new destination my husband, Richard, is known to say “So, tell me about this place!”

So where are we going next?

I’m excited to say our next adventure is one that’s been on our bucket list for a long time….we are going to The Red Centre.

What’s The Red Centre?

The Red Centre is the name given to Central Australia in the Northern Territory. The ‘red’ comes from the colour of the sandy desert. The Red Centre is famous for being home to the largest monolith in the world, Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock). We can’t wait to go there!

Other well known natural attractions include, Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Kings Canyon. Alice Springs is the largest town in the Red Centre and we will be visiting ‘the Alice’ on our journey.

One of the things I’m really looking forward to is camping in the Tjoritja West McDonell Ranges. The Tjoritja West McDonell National Park stretches some 150km west of Alice Springs and includes some spectacular gorges and water holes such as Ormiston Gorge, Ellery Creek Big Hole, Standley Chasm, Redbank Gorge and Glen Helen Gorge. We hope to visit as many of these as possible.

The Larapinta Trail winds some 223 kilometres through Tjoritja and was voted by National Geographic as one of the worlds top 20 trekking experiences. The trail is divided into 12 sections and you can do just one or more of each. We probably won’t be doing that but we will be doing lots of walking and maybe have a swim or two in one of the spectacular waterholes.

We will be taking our motorhome and will be accompanied on this great adventure by our daughter and her three children. They have a caravan and swags. We are busy prepping our vehicles to get them ready for lots of free/low cost camping. This means extra water, a grey water tank for the caravan and ensuring everything is in good running order.

As some of our travel will be during the busy winter school holidays we recently decided to book some accomodation and I’m glad we did. When we tried to book for the time we wanted at Ayers Rock Campground they were already booked out, so, we changed our plans and will go to Alice Springs first, then the West McDonells before we go to Uluru and Kings Canyon. Having found Ayers Rock Campground booked out solid for the school holidays we went on and booked at Kings Canyon, Alice Springs, Coober Pedy and Broken Hill. The rest we plan to wing it. It’s comforting to know that when we finally arrive at these places we have our campsites booked.

It’s becoming a little exciting now the countdown has begun…..13 weeks until departure.