1 After driving 75 kilometers (47 miles) south from Alice Springs and another 22 kilometer (14 miles) stretch of dirt road you hit on of my favorite places, Rainbow Valley.
2 Rainbow Valley Nature Park comes in at around 2483 hectares (6135 acres).
3 The view starts getting interesting even from the car park.
4 You've just got to love the wide range and variances in the colors. Photos do not do justice the the landscape.
5 Look out, I'm off to get "the" photo.
6 At the foot of the Rainbow Valley cliffs it this huge clay pan.
7 The clay pan is all dried up, but I have some brilliant photos with this full of water and the cliffs in the background.
8 Rainbow Valley area is all about the scenic sandstone bluffs and cliffs.
9 These free standing cliffs form part of the James Range.
10 The coloured rock bands in the sandstone cliffs were caused by water.
11 In earlier wetter times, the red iron of the sandstone layers was dissolved, and drawn to the surface during the dry season.
12 The red minerals formed a dark iron rich surface layer with the leached white layers below. This can be seen by the layering effect.
13 This dark red capping is hard, and accordingly it weathers slowly.
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15 Whereas the soft white sandstone below weathers quickly into loose sand.
