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Published: September 6th 2009
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Day 129 - Alice Springs - East MacDonnell Range
It’s a young lady’s birthday today, Happy Birthday Amy, we hope you have a lovely day and with any luck the Beanie Kids will send you a message about what they’ve been up to very soon! It was a windy old night last! I mean it was windy outside the caravan, not inside! We’d really needed a good nights sleep but I’m not sure either of us got it although Darryl would disagree with that statement because when I said that I’d been awake ‘most of the night’ he said that I didn’t stir when he got up to go to the toilet and I hadn’t heard the alarm go off at 5am. Ok, so I was asleep for just those bits but I was sure I was awake for the rest of it!!
We’re off to walk in the East MacDonnell range today and it’s being made easier because we’ve got our car plus Tony & Jane’s at our disposal. The walk is 10km one way with a grading of Difficulty so we’re expecting it to be quite tough, hence the early morning start and the use of
both cars so we can park one at the end and drive to the start in the other!
In the cars and on our way by 6am we were rewarded with the most magnificent sun rise and 6 red boomers bounding across the road in front of us! How great to see Red Kangaroos in the wild, fabulous. We stop for a while watching the sunrise turn the sky all different shades, it was beautiful.
Trephina Gorge is our destination this morning and we’ve chosen to end our walk there so leave Tony & Jane’s Landcruiser in the car park then pile into our car and get on the 4WD only track to the John Hayes Rockhole. It’s only a light 4WD track, there are a couple of big rocks but it’s mostly gravel and some sand so nothing major.
We get ourselves ready and hit the walking trail at 7.55am, our early start to the day is paying dividends as the cool air is still around! The first section is fairly steep with some rocks to clamber over but Tony sets a great pace and the rest of us cling on behind! The views are good
on the way up, there doesn’t appear to be a ‘top’ in sight as each time we think we’ve reached it another section stretches up and out in front of us! The highlight of the first section is at the end of the additional Turners Lookout track where we find a Visitors Book for us to sign! How great is that! With the extra km under our belts, onward we trek with all the uphill climbs behind us so things are much less taxing. We meet another group coming towards us, they started at Trephina Gorge, and they reckon we’ve only got another hour and a half to go! We’re ripping this walk apart!
The only annoyance is the flies that cover our backs and seem intent on trying to reach the nether regions of our noses! Yuk! The boys were out in front of us girls for most of the walk and try as we might we just couldn’t keep up with them so instead settled into a nice walk of photographs and admiring the views! They did wait for us in certain places though and Tony, ever the tease, pointed to a rocky outcrop on the other
side of the gorge saying that a man had been waving across to them. I immediately grabbed the camera to zoom in only to be met with the comment “Oh he’s gone now, he couldn’t wait that long”!! Cheek!
At the point where we’d stopped was a pile of rocks which we figured walkers were adding to each time they passed so we duly stuck our extra 4 rocks on the top!
The track wound down towards the gorge, the colours of the rocks and the surrounding flora was lovely and you truly did get the feeling of remoteness and isolation looking out of the miles and miles of uninhabited land!
Soon enough we were at the glorious Trephina Gorge where the white sand, red purple gorge walls, pale tree trunks and blue sky was quite a sight to behold. The clamber down to the gorge was easy enough and we met plenty of people on the way to the car park who were just setting off on the gorge stroll, nobody was heading out to do the long walk in the mid-day heat! Very sensible too!
We sat and ate lunch very pleased with our
just under 4 hour excursion of 11km. The flies were happy that weren’t getting whacked about every second and the sandwiches tasted delicious! We finished off with the short stroll through the gorge, made more difficult because for most of it you’re walking through sand - hot sand!
So that was Trephina Gorge, all that was left now was for us to go and collect our car from the John Hayes Rockhole and whilst we were there we just couldn’t resist another climbing expedition! There is a walk called Chain of Pools which follows the same initial steep climb as our walk this morning, none of us really fancied doing that but we did want to have a look at the waterholes. We found a track to the first one and then realised with a bit of clambering we could get to the second and from there we could get to the third! Amazing what you can find when you look that bit further! We discussed the possibility of swimming across the waterhole to get a really good photo of us all on the other side, Darryl almost took up the challenge but then decided the murky water didn’t
look all that inviting so gave it a miss!
We were back at camp nice and early which gave us the chance to catch up with washing and blogs, still no sign of any postcards being written though!! There are just not enough hours in the day!
Dinner was round at Tony & Jane’s where we cooked up a BBQ and made a quick phone call back to Melbourne to wish Amy a very Happy Birthday. Great to catch up with everyone there, we interrupted their evening celebrations a bit but it was lovely to chat to Anna, Amy, Charlotte, Daph and of course Grant!
Our last meal, for a while (!) with Tony and Jane was lovely and we managed a bit more blog writing and a 5 minute viewing of the ‘Red Centre Show’ where the camp entertainer was in full swing of ‘Behind the Gum Trees, with lots of plum trees, a cow or two and a kangaroo’ all with the crowd doing the actions and ending with ‘and an old rocking chair’. It’s very funny and we saw it done by The Roadies at Kings Canyon and now here so we figure this
is an Australian ‘Aga-doo’ type thing!
Anyway, off to bed we went ready for moving day tomorrow.
Dar and Sar
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Joyce & Pat Caffell
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photography/your trip
Hi guys, have just read this page - wow!!! The photos are something out of this world - makes mine look real amateurish. Will read some more soon, but we are both overwhelmed with the fantastic photos. You r sure a lot more active than us (well Pat really but cos he can't walk long distances I don't do it on my own). I guess we will miss out on some of these sights because of that reason. Enjoy the rest of your travels. Cheers