Finally we get a later start and everyone's brighter for it. We walk down into Redbank gorge nearby and swim, stop at another lookout and visit Glen Helen gorge for lunch. There's a few hippies about, finding nice spots for the end of the world. 
It's a beautiful drive towards Alice springs, a place I never imagined in this setting. The sky's moody and interesting again and watching it go by, I reflect on this rather epic 10 day trip which has shown me some of the interior- and really far more than I imagined. There are huge spaces of dry deserts true but also lots of spaces filled with amazing things. Aboriginals survived here for thousands of years, Europeans often died here as they tried to explore the arid land, some searching for a vast inland sea which they never found.
I hadn't anticipated the different landscapes - my image of a desert really is sculpted sanddunes -but there are so many types of deserts- and they didn't seem devoid of life and they weren't always dry. We hadn't encountered any dangerous snakes or spiders but we'd had the heat and the flies. The harsh landscape engenders respect and awareness for the importance of precious water.We have a final night together as a group in Alice, meeting up in a rather cleaner state than we are accustomed to seeing each other!
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