Palm Valley Campout with Friends

OK, this post is way overdue, and I am running short on details because I waited too long to blog about the trip, but Palm Valley was absolutely beautiful and a fantastic camp!

Trent took our family on a pre-camp visit to the campground to check out the facilities before actually staying there with friends.  Plus, we had a free Saturday and the weather was great!  A few of these early pictures are of our first glance of Palm Valley...

18 kilometers is about 11 miles...

Beaux patiently waiting to arrive

Jones happy to run free at the campground

Pretty water crossing between campground and Palm Valley

Some of the first palms we encounter - striking against red sheer cliffs

Natural stone bench

The start of the Palm Valley walk

Palm Valley is in a national park area, so has a bathroom facility with hot showers, communal fire pits, gas bbqs, and designated camp spots with a fee for staying in the campground.  We were in a tent site and had a nice grassy area to set up our tent and camp gear.  Camping in grass is tons cleaner than camping in either sand or dirt!  We could have wished for our own fire pit, but it worked OK sharing with all the other visitors to the campground.

Rappe Campsite

We left Alice in the morning to secure our spot, plus nice spots for the other two families who were meeting up later in the day.  The drive is very pretty with steep red cliffs and interesting landscapes all through.  Palm Valley is known to be the only place on earth where the Red Cabbage Palm grows, so that is the claim to fame!

Trent and Jones consulting the field guide

Jax at the "verandah" of the tent

Palm Creek just behind our campsite - Gorgeous!

Must be our lucky day!  Four-leaf clover lily pads?

Jones and Beaux putting some practice in

Kids and Fire...

Mist rising off Palm Creek at dawn

Mulga Snake

Over 6 ft long mulga snake (or King Brown)

 We did see a beauty of a mulga snake while on a walk...seemed he wanted to use the trail at the same time!  Jax had a near miss of stepping on a pretty dangerous snake, but thankfully, Trent yanked him back and to safety just in time.

Our friends all arrived at the campsite and got set up while we provided a bbq meal for everyone, since our hard work was done.  We got a little bit of time to hang out around the campfire (with 15 or so other people we didn't know) while the ranger gave a talk about wildlife in the area.  That was very interesting, as he talked about dingoes and snakes, etc.  He said that they keep finding snakes in the bathrooms (eating frogs, presumably), and having to relocate them.  We didn't see any evidence of dingoes in the area, but that may have been due to the large number of people camping at the time.  The ranger advised using a "torch" (flashlight) in the bathrooms at night in case of wildlife.  Yeek.

The following day we had a nice, leisurely breakfast and then headed off to the Palm Valley walk, a nice two hour hike a bit of a drive from the campground.  We all piled into two of the vehicles, because the terrain is pretty rocky with a couple water crossings and one of the cars' tires weren't up to it.  The kids loved hanging out in the roof baskets of the cars...and it does make for a nice photo op!

Beaux, Hannah, Rebecca, Jones, Elizabeth, Rachel, Damaris, Jax, Sam and Emily

Andrew and Linda, Eunice and Lionel, Hilary and Trent

Gorgeous view from the Palm Valley hike

 We actually did the walk backward because we wanted to climb first instead of at the end of the loop.  The views from the tops of the cliffs looking over the palms was absolutely amazing!  It did take several hours to finish the hike, but it was very interesting with lots of stops for rests.

Jax having a water break

Jones laughing at Papa

Beaux refueling with a granola bar (muesli in Oz)

Witchetty Bush

Reflections

Rebecca, Beaux, Hannah, Jones, Elizabeth, Rachel, Jax, Damaris, Sam, and Emily

Patterns in the Rock

Aren't the palm trees tall?!

Checking the water crossing

The Plunge

The Disco on the other side!

 It was a fun day, and one of the other moms made stew for all of us in her Dream Pot.  It's supposed to be like a crock pot, but works just by pouring boiling water around the pot of food and it cooks it slowly without electricity.  I had made biscuit dough to accompany the stew for my family, so we wrapped that around our roasting forks and cooked that up over the fire.  That was pretty popular, and a double batch of biscuit dough disappeared before either Trent or I got a bite!  It was fun to share that tradition with our Aussie friends.  They don't seem to have refrigerated biscuit dough here...horrifying...which is why we made homemade, but it didn't hold together as well as the kind from a can back home.  Of course, s'mores made an appearance and the guys played guitar at the fire.  It was a night to remember!

Sunday was our final day, so we were packing up and getting ready to leave after lunch.  Mid-morning we took a break and most of us went on a Lookout walk that was close to the campground.  That actually took longer than we thought it would because we kept finding beautiful picturesque scenes!

Beaux and Damaris on the edge...Careful!

Alien landscape

Rappe Family at Palm Valley

 Lots of picture taking and rocks to climb on this Lookout walk!  Then it was back to camp to pack up and head out.  Lunch was provided by one of the other families, chicken schnitzel on bread.  (A lot of times they just use buttered bread instead of hamburger or hotdog buns here in AU.)

Trent packing up the roof; Camp's Over!

 We didn't get any pictures of the kids' favorite spot to play...They called it Moon Rock and was a big expanse of rock near some water and they had to trek a ways from camp to reach it.  The big kids went with them, so they loved to escape to Moon Rock anytime they could!

When the Ranger found out we were leaving that day he mentioned that it was probably for the best as they had 30 "footballers" heading in to camp the next couple days!!  We passed van after van full of guys as we drove away from Palm Valley, and found we heartily agreed with the Ranger!  It was a great camp and really a beautiful place to explore.

 - Hilary

Pretty path through the Bush