13th Nov - Western McDonald Ranges

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Up at 7, cooked eggs on toast for breakfast. Packed up car again and made Fajiatas for lunch. Called a few friends in the UK to catch up. We left Alice at 9 and got on the road out to the Western McDonald Ranges. There is a road which goes out to Glen Helen from Alice Springs with various stops along the way. We stopped off at all of the places we could visit which you could access via sealed roads as we do not have a 4X4.

Simpsons Gap: A nice little stop off point.









Standley Chasm: There is a walk from a cafe to the chasm. It is privately owned land and so it cost $6 to get in. Fortunately the sun started to come out when we where there. It is one of the most photographed places in the area and is beautiful. The walls of the chasm are really high and they light up a firey red when the sun is high in the sky (when we were there). It felt like we were in an Indiana Jones movie. As it is coming into the Wet season there are much fewer numbers of tourists than normal. It is great to see all of these places on our own or with just a few people. It is like we are discovering them ourselves.



On the walk back to the car (about 3km) Kim spotted a large golden spiders web (about 2m across) with a big spider in the middle eating a fly. It turned out that it was a golden orb spider - a deadly spider. When the sun caught the web it glowed an amazing gold colour. Cool.





Ochre Pits: The ochre pits are where the Aboriginal people of the area get their ingredients to make the different colours for painting their bodies and also cave walls. The pits were very impressive. There was ochre of all different colours which would easily break off in your hand. It would easily be turned into a power. The different colours of the rock was certainly worth seeing.



Ormiston Gorge: This is a big gorge area about 1km from the car park. The water was cool but certainly not too cold to swim in. Me and Kim went for a swim from one end to the other to cool off and I then did the 8km rim walk/run round the top and back. The views were great. The rock round here is bright red when the sun hits it. On my run I nearly ran into a snake. I saw it's whole body and when it saw me it just put it's head under a rock and pretended not to be there. With the rest of its body (1.5m) across the path I was not sure how I was going to get past. Fortuntely after a few minutes it slithered off. It turned out to be a Western Brown - a pretty poisonous snake. I don't like snakes.....

As there had been a lot of rain fall over the last the gorge was higher than normal. The walking signs were suggesting that in order to do the full circular walk I would have to swim the last bit back - rubbish! They meant wade.....

Glen Helen Gorge: This was another beautiful gorge.


We had planned on staying at Glen Helen over night but changed our minds as it was earlier in the day when we arrived than we had thought. We decided to do the drive back to Alice tonight rather than tomorrow morning, which would mean less of a drive to Kings Cannon tomorrow.
On the drive home the sunset was amazing. A wild dingo passed in front of us across the road. Tick - we have now seen a wild Dingo. Kim took me out for a lovely Thai meal in Alice. We were going to go out for drinks but we decided to get up early tomorrow instead and head to Kings Cannon.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikenz2uk/sets/72157625344754717/