Day 4 in Central Australia

Gosh, I'd better keep writing this blog about Central Australia otherwise I'll be getting distracted by walks in Sydney. I've just been for a stunning (and extremely wet) walk with Rutger (it's ANZAC day today and so we have a day off work). This walk was so different to the walk on day 4 in the Macdonnell ranges. Rutger and I were just now wading through raging torrents (getting soaked up to our knees) and slipping off wet rocks. In contrast, Joris, Christine and I were walking through the driest terrain that I've seen. We walked down the dry river bed feeling very small under the huge gorge cliff edges. We spotted a few birds (such as the heron hiding in the second photograph) and had breakfast sitting on huge rocks in the river bed. As we came out of the gorge the scenery changed to a huge, relatively flat valley surrounded by high hills.

The weather was hot and dry and we needed most of the water that we were carrying! The walk (probably about 4-5 hours in length) took us through the valley and then up the mountain sides. We walked along a wonderful ridge with huge drops on both sides.

Part of our walk was on the Larapinta trail which runs for 230km across the ranges. I'd love to do this walk (anyone want to come with me?), but I'm not sure how we'd carry enough water!

It's basically impossible to try and describe this scenery so I'll just show some photos. I do have much higher resolution images of all these pictures if anybody wants them.

We did share the path for a while with a good-looking parentie (goanna or monitor lizard) that must have been about 1m long. Although we kept a close lookout for snakes we, unfortunately, didn't see any.

My book tells me that the geology as Ormiston Gorge is very complex: "Essentially, gargantuan earth movements have heaved and thrust hundreds of metres of Heavitree Quartzite on top of itself". Some of the rock in the area is "ancient metamorphic rock two billion years old"!

What a day! We finished our walk by the late morning and drove back into Alice. This time we stopped at the desert park. Wow! Another wonderful place. Admittedly (like Bill Bryson) we were a bit surprised that they had put a fence around a bit of the desert and called it a desert park (and charged people to see it)! But, it was great! We saw an informative film around the region and then separated and made our own way around the park (although we did all meet again in the nocturnal house for a tour - with the guide being so emotional about releasing native animals back in the area that she almost burst into tears - and for the bird show).

Not wanting to hang around too long, we had lunch at the park and then continued driving East. We drove through Alice and then out towards the Eastern ranges to see Trephina Gorge. This involved a bit more driving on dirt roads and dodging a dingo that just happened to be sitting on the road. We stopped at another well-maintained (but isolated) camp-ground and again went for an evening walk in the gorge. Trephina gorge is beautiful, but not nearly as dramatic as Ormiston gorge. In the evening we again sat outside watching the moon (now almost full) rising above the gorge edges, but this time we didn't see any animals. The silence was amazing.