Day 35 - 27/04/2011 Alice Springs – Glen Helen

Day 35 - 27/04/2011 Alice Springs – Glen Helen

Yippee, Callum got discharged today from hospital, his foot is healing really well and the medical staff could find no reason to keep him admitted any longer!!  To say we were excited was an understatement.  We had really enjoyed staying with friends and it was awesome to give Claudia and opportunity to get to know Jocelyn, who know maybe they too will have a lifetime friendship like Melinda and I do!!



Glen Helen Gorge



Being discharged was a little challenging because Callum needs a new bandage in three days, technically this would be Saturday.  But given we are not sure where we would be on Saturday I had checked if I could bring him to the paediatric outpatients on Friday just in case we left Glen Helen early this was OK when I check with yesterday’s afternoon shift –but today’s nurse and paediatric registrar remained confused for a while whilst I tried to explain that I would get Callum’s burn checked and the bandage changed either Friday or Saturday. I had to explain to them that the NT wasn’t littered with medical centres so I might need to get the burn checked more frequently depending on where we were!!  Eventually they agreed and let us leave!! Callum’s foot needs to be checked every three days for the next 10 days just to ensure there is no infection and that it is healing appropriately – I’m sure we can accommodate this requirement.

So we escaped hospital with Callum and headed to Coles to stock up on the essentials, like ½ price easter eggs and chocolate biscuits!!  just what we needed for a few days roughing it in the West MacDonald Ranges.  Yep that’s right we were going to go back out to Glen Helen!! Round two! But you can be confident that on the drive out we reiterated to the kids “not to go near fires!! Treat all fires as hot!! Oh and always do what your mum and dad says!!” we threw the last statement in just to see if they were listening….



Kids swimming



On arrival we set about setting up camp and then headed to the river, we were surprised to learn that the river that runs through the Glen Helen Gorge was the Finke River, the same river we had played in a few weeks earlier at the Finke River National Park!!  The kids were keen to swim so Peter blew up the rings that we had purchased in Alice Springs.  I had read in one of my many travel books that the water in the gorges in NT was very cold even in summer and whilst swimming was permitted at certain places, swimmers were encouraged to take flotation devices and wear wetsuits.  We didn’t put the wetsuits on today but the kids had a ball on their rings even though the water was quite cold.  Whilst I had told Callum he couldn’t swim in the pool he had a blast swimming in the river.  The down side was piggybacking him to and from the river so that he didn’t get to much sand in his bandage!!

We all agreed it was great to have the great adventure back on the road!!