Day 42 - Alice Springs (West McDonnell Ranges)
What a magnificent day admiring the best Mother Nature has to offer! Today we headed out to the West McDonnell Ranges in lieu of staying out there and spent a very long day investigating the magnificent locations within this National Park.
First stop was Simpson's Gap, a narrow chasm in the range. There was very little water flowing through the gap at this time of year but just enough to make a lovely photo. In fact, we were able to walk along the sandy creek bottom until this point.
Then we decided to travel to the far end of the park and work our way back. In hindsight, we should have done Standley Chasm next as everyone says 12pm is the ideal time to photograph it with the sun straight overhead. However, we drove the 150km out to Redbank Gorge. We enjoyed our picnic lunch there first and then attempted the walk into the gorge. However, the going got a bit tough so we pulled the pin. The surrounding hills were quite magnificent though.
Slowly making our way back, we then stopped at Ormiston Gorge, which is the most popular spot in the National Park and could quite possibly have been our camping spot if we had stayed out here. Probably a good thing we didn't as the Ranger at Simpson's Gap said it was -6C there last night! However, the gorge was quite beautiful and we even got to have a coffee too!
Our next stop was the Ochre Pits, a very special place for the local people as it is where the men harvest the three coloured ochres used for ceremonial decorations. On the way, this dingo walked in front of us!
The Ochre Pits themselves were amazing, and protected. There is a maximum $5000 penalty for anyone even touching let along removing any of the ochre. The three colours depends on the amount of iron in the rock, as it was formed millions of years ago. The local people base it on the Dreamtime.
Back on the road, and we travelled some more kilometres to the Ellery Creek Big Hole. This is a permanent waterhole and was very peaceful at near on dusk. This would be an amazing spot in summer, and the campground right on the river (currently dry) was very pleasant.
It was almost sunset by now and we still had an hour's drive back to Alice Springs but thankfully the animals keps away from the road. It was easy dinner night tonight with leftovers and other titbits. Greg was most disappointed that the strawberries and pancakes vendor who has been here (in the caravan park) every night was not in situ tonight - today is Show Day in Alice Springs so we summised they must have moved across the road to the Showgrounds! We will see tomorrow when we go to the Show!
2 Comments:
Don't forget to go to the Desert Park Centre in Alice Springs. (One of our favourites)While there download the West MacDonnell Ranges App (free from the Centre). It will provide Dreamtime stories and Ranger information for you to listen to while driving.
Thanks, Jude. We actually passed it yesterday which is a shame because the app would have been great. No time today because of the Show - obviously something we hadn't planned to do but the timing was right so we had a fun day out.
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