After what we now fondly refer to as “death gorge” or Redbank gorge, as it is actually called, we still had quite a few gorges and sights left in the West Macdonnell Ranges. Here I was thinking I would be sick of gorges, as the West Mac’s consisted of about 8-10 gorges but each one surprised me with it’s own unique beauty and differing wildlife. We camped for a night at Glen Helen Homestead which had some pretty good facilities but also seemed like it had fallen into disrepair. In its defence it was in a prime location, with the homestead looking right onto the towering red cliff face of the gorge itself. There was also a lot of water and reeds in the gorge, which made it even more beautiful. We were running low on water after several days of bush camping so we filled our 95 litre water tank with the bore water, despite the ladies vague warning that it was “drinkable” but a little salty tasting. We didn’t pay her much heed and proceeded to fill the tank while I made myself a coffee. I had just finished putting sugar and milk in and took a big gulp only to spit it straight back out as it tasted like I had made it with seawater. The bore water was absolutely disgusting and in my opinion hardly drinkable. As there weren’t a whole lot of other options we were forced to drink it anyway for the next few days. The weather had just changed and it started raining so we figured we would go for a kayak in the gorge since we would be getting wet anyway. It really was a stunning gorge and was nice and wide for us to paddle through. We even found a rope swing to swing into the water with. Glen Helen bar even provided us with some nice live acoustic music for that evening to enjoy with our beers!!
The next day we decided to kayak through Ormiston gorge, but since it’s a bit of a trek to get in there we only took one kayak which Jamie carried most of the way. Even though the water didn’t go through as far as we had hoped we were rewarded with some amazing wildlife sightings including a sacred king fisher, an adorable family of black footed wallabies and to my amazement a wild Perentie. Perenties are Australia’s largest monitor lizard and can reach over 2 metres. I had been hoping to spot one all trip. Even though this one was only about 1.5 metres, we didn’t know it was a Perentie until later. It is a stunning lizard with circular patterns on its body and a long tail. We watched and photographed him for a while, he let us get about 3 metres away and then we even saw him hunt and eat a smaller lizard.
Heading finally in towards Alice we stopped at a few more beautiful spots along the way including Ellery Creek Big hole, Simpson’s gap and Serpentine gorge. We stayed 2 nights in a caravan park just outside of Alice Springs and took day trips in. One of the highlights was the Desert Park, with the bird show where they showcase owls, falcons, buzzards and kites. We also got to see a heap of other desert birds and lizards and learned some more about Aboriginal culture, bush food and weapons.
Jamie had recently discovered there were some towns in the East Macdonnell Ranges that had gems and gold to be fossicked and found. So with high hopes to find riches enough to fund our entire trip, we set out again. We started the adventure off at Gem Tree where there are zircons and garnets to be found. Jamie discovered quite a few garnets in the fossicking fields, with much digging and sweating in the heat. So it was with fairly high hopes that we approached the zircon fields, zircon being a more valuable gem than garnet. When we found some we were both sorely disappointed with the look of zircon, as the colors ranged from brown/orange to clear yellow. They basically looked like little pieces of plain quartz. We were both starting to tire of this venture and could see that our fortune was not to be had so we moved on to Arltunga, Central Australia’s first gold fields. Arltunga town was nothing more than a small visitor centre and the fossicking areas did not yield the elusive gold we had hoped for. We did awake to some amazing news that we had become an aunt and uncle again to a beautiful baby girl, 4 days earlier than expected.
By this stage, we were both a bit fed up with the never-ending heat, flies and bugs that pestered us constantly. As it was forecast to get even hotter (up to 40 degrees) we proceeded quickly back to Alice Springs where the caravan park had a pool we could seek refuge at. We spent the next 2 days swimming and escaping the heat, and also meeting some people with a pet eclectic parrot that sat on my shoulder. Tomorrow will be the start of our trip back to Adelaide, and so ends our central Australia chapter! We look forward to meeting our new niece when we get back home.
