I visited Australia’s Red Centre with stunning landscapes and baby kangaroos

I’m overcome with joy as the baby kangaroo in my arms stares up at me through big brown eyes. Mushka is one of many joeys here at the Kangaroo Sanctuary in Australia’s Northern Territory, most of which were brought in after being discovered inside the pouches of mothers who had been hit by cars. The sanctuary, just outside Alice Springs, sits within 188 acres of natural bushland – red dirt, trees and shrubs – that allows its inhabitants to live like they would in the wild, in preparation for being released. Shorts Shortly after we start our tour with founder Chris Barnes – nicknamed Brolga, a bird in the crane family, due to his 6ft 7in skinny frame – the group is stunned when he picks up a laundry basket full of clothes and pulls out several pillowcase-wrapped joeys. They’re just a few months old, Brolga tells us, and they love this snug environment because it mimics their mother’s pouch – somewhere they’d normally spend the most part of their first year. As we walk around, we’re able to hold the creatures and feed the other young kangaroos with bottles of milk and grass. Brolga explains visitors are encouraged to handle and bond with the animals so they know what to do if they find an orphaned joey. In the run up to the animals’ release, human contact is reduced to help them transition back to life in the wild. The writer with a joey that was being taken care of at the Kangaroo Sanctuary There are older kangaroos, too, which are nursed back to health, although some of them – and some joeys – have medical conditions that mean they cannot be released, as they wouldn’t survive in the wild. “I didn’t choose them, they chose me,” Brolga says. He was inspired to set up the sanctuary, which opened in 2011, after struggling to find wildlife rescuers to care for a joey he found. “It was Christmas time and all the carers were away on holidays,” he tells me. “I couldn’t find anyone to look after it. I sat in my hotel room, I was a tour guide at the time – I didn’t have a house, I just lived in a hotel. There was a baby kangaroo in my arms and no one’s answering the phone, so that’s when I decided I’ll just set up my own place.” His work has made Brolga a legendary figure in Australia, and his life inspired the film Kangaroo, which came out in UK cinemas earlier this year. Chris ‘Brolga’ Barnes founded the Kangaroo Sanctuary in 2011 after struggling to find wildlife rescuers to care for a joey he had found (Photo: Brendan McFadden) The sanctuary turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip to Australia’s Red Centre, the southern desert of the Northern Territory, spanning about 520,000 sq miles and known for its dramatic landscapes and mountain ranges. My visit in March followed record rainfall, meaning the arid scrublands were lush and green – water was even gushing through the Todd River, which is often bone dry. I based myself in Alice Springs, a remote town founded in 1872 as a telegraph station, which today has a population of 28,000, many of whom are Indigenous Australians whose people have lived in this country for tens of thousands of years. My accommodation, a smart studio villa at Desert Palms Alice Springs motel, was on the outskirts of town, with a beautiful communal swimming pool within a tropical garden. One afternoon, I headed to the Araluen Arts Centre, on the other side of Alice, where I explored exhibitions showcasing contemporary Aboriginal art, including a selection of watercolours depicting outback landscapes painted by the late Albert Namatjira, one of Australia’s best-known artists. Further out, Alice Springs Desert Park is an education facility and wildlife park designed to showcase the Australian bush’s desert habitats and woodlands. Presentations are held throughout the day on wildlife, plants and Aboriginal culture. In a small outdoor theatre, I watched in awe as a handler used food to coax an array of birds into demonstrating their behaviour and foraging techniques. It was a thrilling spectacle, with a black-breasted buzzard pecking open a fake ostrich egg, various birds flying overhead, and a ground-dwelling bush stone-curlew landing a few feet from my seat. Alice is extremely isolated, with the nearest cities, Darwin and Adelaide, both more than 900 miles (1,448km) away. Ahead of the trip, I’d come across reports of social issues and high crime rates here, but my experience was of a sleepy town with laidback locals and little traffic or people on the streets. At the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) museum in the town centre, I gained even more insight into the Red Centre’s isolation, learning about the charity, which uses small planes and helicopters to provide healthcare to rural, remote and outback areas. I stepped inside the replica fuselage of a Pilatus PC-12 aircraft used for rescues – complete with medical equipment and beds – and took part in a virtual reality experience, which included real footage of a patient being treated as he was flown to a hospital following a heart attack. Ellery Creek Big Hole is a refreshing spot for a swim (Photo: Brendan McFadden) Just west of the town is Tjoritja/West MacDonnell National Park – known for its geological formations, dramatic gorges and permanent waterholes – where I spent a day exploring on foot and in a rented SUV. A short drive west brings me to Simpsons Gap, a stunning natural gorge and waterhole between towering cliffs, which is home to black-footed rock-wallabies. A little further down the road, Standley Chasm is a mesmerising 80-metre-high narrow gorge that slices through red quartzite and sandstone. Ellery Creek Big Hole, a huge waterhole between cliffs, proved the perfect spot for a refreshing dip. The park has many well-signposted trails, including the Ormiston Gorge Pound Walk, which turned out to be one of the best hikes I’ve ever done. The spectacular 10km route begins in bushland, and after ascending upwards spirals into Ormiston Pound, a vast valley encircled by mountains. Towards the end is Ormiston Gorge, a spectacular cleft with 250-metre-high walls of red quartzite and another waterhole. With no signal and no one else in sight, I felt truly alone, which, though slightly unnerving, gave a real sense of the landscape and its vastness. Camping near Uluru offers fantastic stargazing opportunities (Photo: Benedetta Barbanti/Getty) Many of the Red Centre’s natural wonders are sacred sites for Indigenous Australians, the best-known being Uluru, the 348-metre-high sandstone monolith formerly known as Ayer’s Rock. And while it stands 270 miles (434km) south-west of Alice, numerous tour operators offer trips there from town. I booked a four-day tour with Mulgas Adventures, and after a five-hour minibus drive, we arrived at Uluru. We walked around the incredible site, gazing at the huge rock that had been sculpted over millennia by wind and rain. Our guide Sophie showed us caves, inscribed with rock art, which were used for Aboriginal ceremonies, teaching and cooking. We also hiked at other incredible spots, including Kata Tjuta, a spectacular collection of 36 enormous rocks, and the 100-metre-deep Kings Canyon, with its red sandstone walls and palm-filled crevices. Along the way our guide offered up detailed insights into the surrounding environment, explaining how Indigenous people traditionally made medicine out of native plants like desert bloodwood trees and bush tomatoes. Kata Tjuta is composed of 36 vast rocks (Photo: David Gray/AFP) During the days the temperatures reached about 30C, but they became more manageable after dark, when we camped out in “swags” – portable tents comprising a mattress encased in weatherproof canvas. With near-zero light pollution and extremely low humidity, the conditions were perfect for stargazing, and staring up at the night sky each night before drifting off is an experience that – like much of my time in the Red Centre – will stay with me. How to get there and around Airlines including Emirates, Qantas, Qatar Airways and Cathay Pacific fly from the UK to Alice Springs with two stops (the second being in Australia). Thrifty offers car hire from its Alice Springs Downtown branch. Where to stay Desert Palms Alice Springs has double villas from A$190 (£100.50). How to do it Mulgas Adventures’ four-day Rock-to-Rock Tour to Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon, Mount Conner and Kings Creek Station costs A$839pp (£444pp) including transport, guiding, camping and most meals.