Saturday 30 July 2022 – On the road again
Both couples slept in this morning and both couples looked at our watches and saw it was 7.45am and eeked and leapt out of bed. It didn’t really matter as, although it’s a travel day, we don’t have a lot of distance to cover and it’s all on bitumen today. Our first stop for the day was only 10km or so out of town – Simpsons Gap. It must be said that the NT know how to make tourism easy, every turn off to a tourist attraction is clearly sign posted, there are bit car parking areas complete with caravan parking, toilets, picnic areas and covered gazebos with big information signs telling you all about the place you are as well as where you are in relation to the Larapinta Trail which stretches right across the West Macdonnell ranges. Simpsons Gap was an easy 20 minute walk into a very scenic little gorge and if you stood in the right place you could hide other tourists behind rocks and get a photo that looked like you were the only one there.
From there we headed on to Standley Chasm which is on private Indigenous land and therefore involves an entry fee of $12 pp. There’s also a cafe and a little campground for people hiking the Larapinta trail (we saw a few intrepid souls with bulging backpacks and calves – good luck to them!) There seemed to be a lot of people happy to cough up the cash to hike the path in so it was impossible to get a photo without people except for right at the end where there was a pretty little pool of water. There were, however, sheer rock faces to take photos upwards so I did that instead.
We continued on and up to Mount Howard lookout where we enjoyed the view of the road stretching off between the hills whilst munching on our sandwiches. Then it was onwards again to Ellery Creek Big Hole. Quite a few people camping here in allotted spaces which you have to book online which is difficult to do when there is no reception out here – you really do have to plan ahead to a certain extent. We parked in the carpark which, for once, didn’t really plan for people towing and had to park along the accessway where we (probably just I though) were a bit annoyed to see a couple of cars had parked when they could have easily parked in the allocated small car parking bays. Luckily one left just as we were trying to park up so it all worked out in the end. It was a nice, easy brick paved walk down to the big hole which looks quite a bit larger than the pool of water we have seen people swimming in when watching YouTube clips of this area. It was not really conducive to swimming today however because a) it’s not really warm enough, b) the floods have made the entry point deep with an undercut so hard to get back out and c) there are heaps of dead fish around the edge of the water and it was really quite stinky. Thanks to our ranger talk at the Desert Park we know the dead fish are because it’s winter and there is less oxygen in the water and it’s all part of the natural cycle and we have been educating people ever since that it is not due to climate change or man made pollution.
We have been making good time today so we went up to the next lookout primarily because it has one of those handy dandy phone boosting thingys where two satellite dishes concentrate the waves down to a point where your phone can get a signal. It worked to a certain extent as I was able to ring Ben and hear him loud and clear but at his end all he could hear was a garbled robot voice. Never mind, I was able to ascertain that he was alive and well and that was the main point of the call (as well as to check the novelty of the phone booster facility).
Our last touristy spot for the afternoon was the ochre pits which really are quite spectacular with their stripes of white, yellow and red. If you think ‘ochre’ is one colour you have been misled! The indigenous mainly use the white and yellow colours in ceremonial decoration with the red being reserved for men and young men for various coming of age ceremonies and so on. The ochre is taken with them on the travels and traded to other groups as well. For us it was quite clearly pointed out that it was ‘look don’t touch’ only.
Another short drive and we were soon bumping into the Finke River two mile camp where we found our own little stretch of riverforeshore far enough up the bank to still be on the rocks rather than boggable sand. We set up and Larry decided to put up his newly reaquired drone only to discover his phone was missing. A thorough search inside caravan and car failed to reveal it so L&h hopped back in the Cruiser and released the ponies back to the Ochre Pits where we had had a cuppa in the picnic area and L had decided he must have left if on the bench. Meanwhile J&M minded the vans and watched the river and the ducks float by wondering why it was taking the boys such a long time to come back. It turned out they hadn’t found the phone in the picnic area and had been to Glen Helen resort also to see if it had been turned in. No luck there either so they came back to camp looking stressed and defeated. One last search through van and car and the damn thing turned up in the front tunnel boot where L must have put it down whilst fishing out the wheel chocks etc. If only we had reception here we could have called it and found it easily. Next big town we get to I am finding a bright yellow phone case for it as the dark blue one is too hard to see against black carpet!
We all felt very relieved (none more so than Larry!) so it was drinks all round whilst we built up a big campfire. H&M provided marinated lamb steaks, jacket potatoes and salad for dinner and then J threw a whole foil wrapped camembert on a hot rock in the coals for dessert. All finished off with a few toasted marshmallows and then to bed. Tonight is the first night we have heard nearby groups still talking and laughing after we have gone to bed but not for long before fresh air and exercise again sent us off to sleep. And so week 2 of the holiday concludes.
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