Day 16, Tuesday 12/7/2016, Rainbow Valley to Ackaringa Station, Painted Desert

 OMG, a record-breaking morning! We left camp by 0800hrs! Perfect, as we have a long drive today. Jack and Siân broke their own swag rolling record this morning with Eliza and Amara cheering them on.

Hopefully the top of the cyclone won't reach this far north.

A quick toilet stop at Erldunda, a chat to the emus, driver swap and back on the road by 1000hrs. Erldunda staff didn't know the road conditions or of any closures.

We had a 50-minute stop at Marla 1240hrs-1330hrs for fuel, toilet and lunch. We were able to get signal on Telstra here to see that all tracks were open. Off to the Painted Desert! Thinking of you Lisa and Michael. You'll get here one day.

It was a pretty easy 4WD track/road into Ackaringa Station that had been recently graded. We were able to drive at 80km/hr. It felt like the green, rolling hills of England rather than the orange of outback Australia. If you look closer though, you can see brown and orange gibber (rocks) between tiny little bright green plants.

We lost 'silver' at one stage, so Col and I drove back as we couldn't get them on the radio. Their awning was coming loose.

The main part of the Painted Desert is on our travels east tomorrow, so we'll set up camp and view it then.

We got to camp at about 1600hrs. It's in the yard paddock behind the station house with a cute little amenity block made of timber and mini orb.

Leah's crew are a bit exhausted with their huge camping set-up. They'll definitely change their system before the next trip. They asked for a room in the drover's quarters, but they are all full.

To top it off the pole for their dome tent broke. Gary isn't too happy.

So Morgans are now in Peter's tent, and Peter is in a swag under the awning. It will be pretty cozy, but probably quicker and easier than the full setup.

We didn't stop for firewood, so no fire tonight. Col and I sat with a glass of wine reading our books. The kids were playing with a soccer ball. Col and I joined in for a bit. There were a couple of farm dogs entertaining Eliza and Amara and the little boy from the property was very cute and not at all shy.

Leah and I got some incredibly colourful sunset photos.

It was a pretty cold evening and I warmed up with a hot shower, just before bed.

Day 15, Monday 11/7/2016, Alice Springs to Rainbow Valley

I've been awake since 0415hrs. Someone went to the toilet at that time, and I thought it was morning. Col then got up at 0430hrs. I looked at my watch and remembered the Euro-cup soccer final was starting. I could hear him in the car with the iPad, then the roosters crowing.

I was wide awake so I read for an hour, went to the toilet, then couldn't get warm back in bed so I stayed up. It was heaven to get into my socks and boots when my feet were cold!

I checked the track status. Painted Desert is open. Oodnadatta is closed but only near Marla. The massive polar storm in the bight is supposedly the biggest they've ever seen. It's sucking -40 degree C air from high altitude and the lines of the low make a huge circle the size of the bight. I showed everyone when they got up so that they could make their own decisions about our offroad return trip. We have no idea at this stage as to how far north the system will push.

Col phoned Chris to say goodbye. She gave him instructions to the local giant camp store 'Desert Dwellers' where Col could get his gas bottles topped up.

We did a small 4WD diversion on the way to Rainbow Valley. Owen Springs is not as pretty or remote as Finke Gorge but is historically significant with it being the first route for telegraph the lines, and Hugh River Station was the first outback station (cattle first then horses).

We're all having fun at the historical Hugh River Station putting our Aboriginal education into action. Siân pretended to live here. She dug in a dry creek bed out the back and found water. Leah and Jordan were practicing their Aboriginal symbol writing, Jack's up a tree and Peter found a nest with miniature eggs.

Redbank Waterhole on the Hugh River would be a lovely campsite, with massive river gums and a deep riverbank. It was dry when we were there. Put that in the memory bank.

Arriving at the incredible Rainbow Valley at 1300hrs we had lunch, set up camp and did the walk to mushroom rock. It was a bit early for the sunset colours, but there were clouds coming in and we wanted to be sure to at least get sunshine on the stunning colours of the rock.

Leah and I had found a grinding bowl under the mushroom rock. A perfect waist high kitchen bench with a bowl carved into it. The kids and Col climbed up the cliff while Leah and I did some photography with Gary joining us.

Eliza and Amara are playing 'Women's business' grinding seeds and Amara is grinding some tea tree for me to make vicks, or use as antiseptic.

It was another 30-degree C day and we were in shirts, covered in sunscreen and wearing hats playing cricket.

Peter called us all over from the cricket game to point out the new beehive in our Defender! There were hundreds of bees in our car on the water tank, and the carpet on the shelf where it had leaked. Sadly, some of them were sucking water from the dish sponge and died from detergent poisoning. Amara was pretty freaked out by it. Even the young adults had a sudden urge to lay down for a while in their zipped-up swags.

In the end we got rid of them with smoke from our campfire. Col was playing with them the whole time. They seemed quite docile. Surprisingly no one got stung. Our water leaked carpet was completely dry when they left.

The BBQs here didn't get hot enough to cook our meat, so we needed the fire to cook with our Biji BBQ. I was trying to cut the vegetables but was constantly distracted by the ever-changing sunset colours, both west and over the incredible rock formations to the east. Jordan and Leah were also constantly called back to take photos. Every time we put our cameras away it would suddenly change to something even more dramatic!

We enjoyed tea and social time around a lovely fire. Most people trickled off to bed, but I noticed the gypsum on the rock formation was glowing from the moonlight and had to do a night shot which Peter, Gary and Leah loved.

Leah, Gary and I stayed up at the fire until 2130hrs.