Tap Dwelling Bees?

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Issy’s opted for another day of rest and relaxation on the large deck of our AirBnb, overlooking a small swimming pool, and why not. … well in my case it’s because I struggle with the whole relaxation thing … so I leave her to it and set off to explore the splendours of the West MacDonnell Ranges.

First stop is the spectacular Simpsons Gap, where a stream has again managed to erode its way through 100 metres or so depth of the mountain range. It seems this whole area was once part of the sea bed. As the waters receded they found weak points in the rock and progressively eroded them away over the billenia (is that a word?) to form the gaps, chasms and gorges that we can see today. So that explains the sand in the creek beds, but what about the rock the size of a couple large trucks sitting on the edge of the sand in the mouth of the Gap. I don’t think that was “progressively eroded”. I hope no one was standing underneath it when it landed.

I take a short stroll from the car park into the Gap. Signs tell me that this will take me 10 minutes. I reckon you could crawl there backwards quicker than that, which gets me thinking about how travel distances are calculated …. and intelligent readers should probably skip to the next paragraph. There seem to be two extremes - what I’ve just described, and the approach used by Mr Google Maps. We noticed a few days ago that Mr Maps thinks that you can drive the 681 kms from Coober Pedy to Alice Springs in 6 hours and 43 minutes, which seems plausible. But what if you want to walk, although I’m not quite sure why anyone would want to do that. Anyway, that little detail aside, it seems that that will take you six days. Huh? So it thinks you can walk more than a hundred kilometres per day, for six days straight, through the desert. And if you want to ride your push bike, well apparently you can get there in a single day. So 681 kms, on a push bike, in one day. I ride my push bike about four times a week, and I remember once riding 120 kms in a single day … and I remember this so well because it took me three weeks to recover. No problem however for Mr Google Maps, he seems to think that riding nearly seven times that distance in day is perfectly doable … if you’re Lance Armstrong perhaps, and you’ve just injected… Anyway, moving on ….

Next cab off the rank is the mind blowingly spectacular Standley Chasm. It’s yet another example of a stream eroding its way through the range, but this time the gap’s only about ten metres wide and the sides are virtually vertical. Absolutely stunning!

Next up is Ellery Creek Big Hole. And I suppose it is a big hole … in the river bed … full of water. Couldn’t they have come up with a slightly more appealing sounding name? Anyway it‘s very attractive, and is apparently a popular swimming hole. I watch on as a couple of young maidens make their way into the hole … sorry water. The weather here at this time of the year is pleasant enough during the day, with maximum temperatures in the mid 20s. The evenings are a different matter. We might be only 50 kms or so from the Tropic of Capricorn, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get distinctly cool once the sun goes down, like single figures type cool. The shrieks of the young maidens suggest that maybe the water temperature here’s more aligned to the nocturnal end of the scale.

Signs above the sink in the men’s room at “The Hole” suggest running the tap for a while before putting your hands under it …. because bees live in it … in the tap. Huh? It’s not the first sign I’ve seen today that’s got me a bit curious. Signs at the entrance to Standley Chasm said that it was sometimes subject to rock falls. What exactly are you supposed to do with that sort of information? Not go? And there was a large tree right on the left hand edge of the bitumen on the road into the Chasm which had a sign attached to it that said “keep right”. Huh? I suppose you could just crash into it, or try to get around it on the left, through impenetrable scrub, but I think you’d probably needed to have ingested some serious quantities of mind bending substances if you were seriously considering either of those options.

Next up are some spectacularly colourful cliffs on one side of a dry creek bed, known as the Ochre Pits. I read that ochre is an important commodity for our indigenous folk, both for medicinal purposes, and as decoration for traditional ceremonies. These “pits” are apparently one of the best sources of ochre in the entire country.

Next and final major stop is at the stunning Ormiston Gorge, which is right up there with Standley Chasm in the hierarchy of today’s highlights. The views from the lookout at the top of the cliff on one side of the gorge are mind blowing.

So overall a day of spectacular highlights … and strange signs …

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Photos

Tree, Standley Chasm
How can a tree that big just grow out of a rock?