Beyond Alice Springs, the most popular travel routes loop east and west, skirting the base of the dramatic Macdonnell Ranges and luring travellers south to Uluru. But in this striking Red Centre landscape sits a vast sandstone wilderness that few roads penetrate, and the single sandy track that does follows one of the world’s oldest waterways.
Hidden within a chiselled topography of rarely seen ranges and stark, flat-topped monuments lies a verdant canyon oasis and its mysterious thicket of striking red cabbage palms. Far too tropical for this stark, red rock landscape, Palm Valley baffles the brightest scientific minds. But the setting — incongruous and utterly bewitching — is what coaxes travellers out of their comfort zones to throw down swags under the stars in Finke Gorge National Park.
Into this remote, red rock wonderland I go, in a family-sized 4WD filled with substantial supplies of camping gear, marshmallows, firewood and red wine. From the tiny town of Hermannsburg where renowned watercolour artist Albert Namatjira is still revered, we hit
