Author: Mr A
Location: From Kings Canyon Resort to Redbank Gorge, West MacDonnell Ranges
Friday: We topped up with diesel just before leaving Kings Canyon Resort and I asked about the road conditions round the Menindee loop road to the West MacDonnell ranges. having had no internet for several days means we were reliant on a 10 year old copy of Lonely Planet…not so good. The young lady behind the counter said “I think its pretty bad, there’s lots of corru…corrug….what’s the word?” I filled in the word that she was struggling to remember…corrugations. She did though brightly volunteer we would need to purchase a pass to travel through the Aboriginal land the road goes through.
Not really knowing what to expect we set off, after a few kilometres of tarmac the road degenerated into a very bumpy track. Corrugated it certainly was. We let the tyre pressures down and I rechecked the suspension settings again. We set off and bounced our way along for several hours, only seeing a few other cars, one trailer being towed and no caravans.
By mid morning Google was estimating we were still over 2 hrs from our planned lunch stop, and then…a miracle. We come round a bend to see two graders ponderously chugging up the road towards us, leaving in their wake a lovely smooth surface!
We waved our thanks to the drivers and “sped” off, the odd patch of sand still making the driving “interesting”. We were soon at our lunch destination, a fabulous lookout over an ancient comet crater.
You wouldn’t have wanted to be around 400 million years ago when this bad baby hit earth. It was one of those views that we love in outback Australia – no sign of humans on the landscape for 360 degrees.
Back on tarmac now we made our destination for the night, Redbank Gorge, in time for a late afternoon walk.
The Gorge is one of several in the West MacDonnell ranges, which spectacularly rise up out of the desert plain and stretch several hundred kilometres. We rocked up at was to be one of our prettiest campsites on this section of the trip, with views down into the gorge. We quickly unhitched and drove down the steep access road, parked up and hit the short trail into the gorge proper.
After a bit of rock scrambling we arrived at this little oasis, a pool of water in sharp contrast to the surrounding dry arid land. We spent a happy hour there watching the sun set fire to the walls of the gorge, then retraced our steps.
This was a view that demanded a decent glass of red, and we counted our blessings once again to be in the position to watch the sun go down on such a stunning outback vista.
I wandered off to talk to our fellow campers and see if anyone had recently travelled the route we planned to take back to the east coast called the Plenty Highway. I got lucky, a couple had just come over on it last week, and had taken four days on what they described as “badly corrugated” track, espcially on the NT side of the border. Ah well, at least we know what we’re up for, as it is often hard to get a factual assessment. So many off-roaders like to puff out their chest and say “Its not bad mate”. This could mean anything from, ‘it is in fact pretty good (unlikely)’ to ‘it’s practically undriveable’.
You have got to admire the Australian way of minimising problems, the “She’ll be ‘right mate” philosophy, but when you are trying to get factual information to plan driving times it’s not helpful. This couple were very good, and detailed the type of road surface to expect on the different sections of the 650km of dirt we are to tackle in a couple of days time.
Mrs A and I then sat down with WikiCamps and made a few adjustments to our schedule!
We opted for a short and peaceful walk along the dry King’s Creek, an informative track with several birds accompanying us, particularly this ever-so-cute Dusky Grasswren a perky little desert dweller that didn’t seem to mind hopping around the rocks near us.
The national park is home to more than 600 species of plant, 10% of which are extremely rare and date back to the dinosaurs. This area has the highest diversity of fauna in any of Australia’s arid zones.
The resort has a pub and restaurant so we decided to give it a try for dinner. Unlike so many places we have come across on this trip, this actually had a decent choice of beverages – including Fat Yak and our local Manly, Sydney tipple, Four Pines beer.
Once you’re up the top of the walls it all gets a lot friendlier, with a lot of red rock hopping over the ancient fossilised sand dunes and sea bed. There is plenty of evidence of the area’s distant past, with fossilised ripples in the rock (they call it ripple-rock, of course) and evidence of the layers of silica in the rock from the drifting sand dunes.
The landscape is unlike anything else, the beehive like structures stretching out into the horizon. I found it interesting to learn that the rock here is all actually bright white sandstone – the red comes from a fungi which grows on the rock and through a chemical reaction allows the red sands from the surrounding arid area to stick to it, hence creating the bright red colour which practically glows in the sunlight.
While not busy, we were certainly not alone on this walk, several other hikers following on the same trajectory – mostly French, a few Chinese and Australians.
After completing the circuit we returned for a relaxed afternoon, Miss Tassie rolling in the red sand and needing a lot of brushing (which she loves!). I suspect the two events might be linked. Are we being manipulated by a Burmese cat?
We left for our ride from the Cultural Centre and followed our noses as there were no signs for a cycling path, but there was this rather large rock to head for.
We joined the pain path around the rock and checked the signage, it only showed walkers, but there were bike hire companies around and plenty of tyre marks, so off we went.
Riding a bike always brings a grin to our faces wherever we are, but to be riding along under this brilliant blue sky, dwarfed by this towering red rock…breathtaking. We just couldn’t stop ogling this magnificent scenery. Neither of us are in any way spiritual, but we both felt this to be the closest we could get, just sitting quietly looking up at this massive granite monolith towering over us.
The short walk we did here was one of the most enjoyable we have done from a scenic perspective for ages. It’s called the Valley of the Winds walk, and takes you up through the domes and in a 7km circuit.
(Below, a friendly Grey Shrike-Thrush which accompanied us on our walk)
We could easily have spent a few more days here, but we are now on a bit of deadline, given we have lost a couple of weeks from our itinerary. So soon it was time to pack up and move on.
Anyway, it was a long day in the saddle, but we pulled up finally at a place we had stopped at on the way north last year. It’s just an old road that loops off the Stuart Highway for about 5km, signposted ‘Churchill’s Head’.
No facilities, just a level bit of ground a view across the plains. We loved it last time, and we love it again. There seem to be so few places like this on the well trodden routes we have been following. For a start there are very few minor roads that lead off the main highway, so we are drawn to caravan parks or the crowded free camps often so close the highway that the road trains sound like they are coming right through the Zone! “Ah..the serenity”, to quote from one of our favourite movies “The Castle”.
If we were to walk out of the van due west we wouldn’t reach another tarmac road for 1,325km – on the west coast of Australia, south of Broome. Not one hint of civilisation, except the Alice to Darwin railway. Nothing else. What a country. How many places in the world still have that amount of emptiness?
Then after lunch we were through Tenant Creek, only stopping for the dump point, and by late afternoon arriving at our camp for the night in a small service centre for the surrounding aboriginal communities called Ti-Tree. Guess what sort of trees grow here?
Checking in for 10 days, I believe we have one of the best sites in the park. Nice and shady, grassy with no neighbours for about 15 metres. 
Better still, we had barely set up when the campground managers came over with three boxes of wine – our Vinomofo and Ross Hill deliveries have made it safely. Sadly the Tscharke wine delivery made it in a leaking crumpled mess to the Berry Springs Post Office with just enough time for the courier to photograph it and then take it away again. Will we ever get to try this wine? Third time lucky we hope…
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Northern Territory was quite a tough and unruly place to live. The climate is challenging to say the least, and settlers trying to grow crops were also stymied by poor soils, high temperatures and rainfall followed by drought. Aboriginal people largely carried on their usual life, with some being employed by pastoralists and hotel operators, and as stockmen, hunters and laborers.
As you leave the museum and see young Aboriginal people sprawled drunk over the pavement, you see that it is now sadly alcohol addiction and a lack of sense of belonging which is killing them.
I had an early dinner and purchased a raw gluten-free, dairy-free cake (Mark’s worst nightmare!) as a treat for dessert before returning to Berry Springs for the evening.
After all the heat and dust of the past few days, this was just what the doctor ordered. We swam up the warm river about 20 metres and were soon away from the crowds and had a lagoon all to ourselves. Just bliss. This has to be a stop over if you’re heading this way.
We did a short walk along the river before returning to Bitter Springs for a dip in the serenity.
Top tips for visiting Bitter Springs (Stay at Bitter Springs Caravan and Camping):
Just one small part of the 40km square area is open to visitors, but it offers a fabulous window to some of Australia’s evolution. Harking back to times when this dry dusty area was instead rich rainforest peppered with spring-fed lakes and pools – now limestone beds packed full of fossilised bones.
The national park seems to be in cahoots with Adels Grove, with a lot of encouragement for visitors to do a paid trip with a tour guide. We tried to get on a tour but none were running, so we did a self-guided visit. There was very limited information provided on boards, and may fossils with no details beside them. You had to use a lot of imagination to understand what you’re looking at, and a lot of Googling later on when we finally got enough phone signal to connect to internet.
It was a slow old journey which led eventually to tarmac, and then another 200km to our destination for the night, Camooweal. There we did a massive clean, inside and out, to try and rid ourselves of some of the red dust we had accumulated over the past few days.
It is amazing how many caravans are on the road – it is not even school holidays any more, and everywhere is heaving. Stations like this are literally raking the money in. We park in rows in a paddock, each van having access to water, a shower and toilet block, and a country music singer around the campfire at night. All this for $20 a van – that’ll be around $1,500 dollars per night earned…not bad for a patch of dirt.
After the area was mined for zinc, silver and lead, the property was purchased by a French botanist who worked for the government. He spent his life planting an incredible botanical garden, irrigating his prize plants from the river, and recording the flora and fauna around the property in meticulous notes, only to have the whole lot burn down from a fire that escaped from a local mine. He no doubt cried “Merde” and promptly laid down in a deep depression and passed away.
I would definitely recommend not listening to the advice they give you to “come out here early”. By lunchtime we were on our own, and what a fantastic place this is. One of the most beautiful locations we have ever paddled in with absolutely prolific birdlife echoing across the gorge. Apparently there are freshwater crocodiles in here – we didn’t spot any but did hear at least one suspect splash as we travelled silently along.
There’s one short portage, no problem for us in lightweight boats, then the second part of the paddle was even more spectacular. The archer fish were out in shoals, spitting water up at me (did I look like a fly?). Fly catchers darted around above the water doing a much better job of catching their prey.
On the way back to the car we stopped at the information boards and read about the significant aboriginal history of the area. The gorge and surrounding area has been lived in for 35,000 years, according to the latest radiocarbon dating of artefacts found here. Not for the 200 years as you would think just reading the information back at Adels Grove. Just think on that for a moment. A continuous, sustainable, culture in this area stretching back 32,000 years before the Pyramids were being built. Nowhere else in the world has anything like that.
Before long we had backed the caravan into the workshop and Mr A was inflating tyres as Bushy did his work, welding the new brackets to the front right hand side of the van. He did a thorough check of all the other brackets, and added some extra weld where he felt needed the strength.
By the time we pulled out at about 10.30am we felt happy that all was securely in place and Bushy reassured us it should stay that way for the foreseeable future.
The air feels lest dusty up here, and it is so good to see the ocean again.
There’s a lovely looking Tavern right on the water front, with a surprisingly interesting menu. It has a large beer garden overlooking the water and sunset, and we have earmarked a couple of seats for tomorrow afternoon.
We returned to camp to watch the sunset over the wetlands, before making dinner with our fresh veg. We watched the whistling kids flying in for the fish scraps being shared by those lucky enough to catch something today. The birds swooped down and caught snacks tossed in the air – quite a sight.
Mr A had more funeral arrangements to make and accomodation to book in the UK…I dread to see what our mobile phone bill will be this month after all these calls! This is a beautiful change of scenery for us though, and we think we’ll enjoy our stay here.
On from there we cycled to the only tourist activity we could see in the town itself, a 6km walk/ride along the outskirts of town.
We mostly followed the dry river bed, and all was going well, until that dreaded exclamation from Mrs A “Oh no….puncture”.
I nipped back to camp on my bike, and returned with the car. Mrs A was soon loaded up with her bike and returned to camp, where we spent the next 3 hours picking bindi spikes out of both of our tyres! I’ve never ridden in this type of country before, so was pretty shocked how it has destroyed even my thick tyres. At least my tubeless set up kept me inflated, well until I started picking out the thorns! We are now going to have the petite (but usually very reliable) MTB that Catherine rides converted to a tubeless set up as well. Definitely worth it. So no more riding until we get to Darwin in a couple of weeks.
At least we have good phone signal here in tiny little Georgetown. It’s been an experience, and makes you realise from talking to the locals, what are some of the challenges of living in a remote area. No doctors, dentists, supermarkets (one of the petrol stations stocks some basic supplies). Or any other trappings we take for granted in the city – restaurants, hairdressers, clothes shops etc. And even this place isn’t remote by some Australian standards, ie. it has tarmac road access!
I have to say I have become a fan of Flight Centre today. I booked through them and they have provided superlative service, so easy to get hold of a real person and talk to them. As compared to going through Qantas, where I spent 45mins on hold trying to even speak to their call centre to resolve an issue. And Flight centre were cheaper for the same tickets. Excellent.