Monday 17 October 2011

Sat 8 Oct – Sun 9 Oct – ‘ The West Macs’

Saturday morning saw us pack up  after breakfast and head out to the West MacDonnell ranges that start 15km west of Alice and stretch another 150km further west.   This area is quite impressive, with massive steep gorges & he plan was to explore the gorges, before setting up camp somewhere at one of them. Well, we checked them all out (except Stanleys chasm – privately owned by the Abo’s (that’s what they are – deal with it…), who wanted 40 odd bucks to look at it…  imagine my reaction to that…..?)
Ellery Creek Big Hole was the first of the gorges with a big freezing cold swimming hole, followed by Ormiston gorge, whee the boys had a swim on big log ‘boats’, which seemed to take the focus away from the water temperature.   We then decided to go on to the last gorge with a camping area, Redbank Gorge.    The road into this place was badly corrugated in places, so it was slow going for the 6kms in.  We arrived at the first campground in this area of the National Park and there was no-one else around.  Great! And all the individual campsites had their own gas bbq’s & cooktops.
We set up for an overnight camp, and relaxed a bit.  We noticed a few bees around, but thought nothing of it.   Well, next time I went outside, there were a heap of bees around the camp – so much so, that we had that camper packed down in 6 minutes flat, and bailed outa there.  No wonder the place was deserted!    We went 1km further up the road to the second campsite at the top of the hill.  By this time. It was near on dark, and this camp was much better….until the wind started.   Great vistas but windy as all night.      Next morning, we decided that Redbank Gorge pretty well sucked as a camp spot, and packed up at first light. We did the 1hr return walk into the Gorge, before going back to Ormiston Gorge for the next night.   This Gorge was also close to Glen Helen ‘resort’, which had a TV for the rugby.   Watched the Wallabies bumble their way past the Springboks before the All Blacks easily accounted for Argentina.
We met up with a family from Perth at Ormiston, who had kids the same age as the boys, and they hit it off straight away. We should have stayed here the first night instead of Redbank, but it’s all part of the experience I guess.
Had a few drinks with some other campers, including a family who had just come from Kings Canyon via the unsealed Mereenie loop rd that day with a new Jayco Swan Outback.  We were going that way tomorrow, and they reported no issues with the road, which was interesting, as we also got chatting with a family from Sth Oz earlier in the day and they were going the long way around to Kings Canyon via sealed roads as they were told in Alice that it is ‘not suitable for trailers’.   I never came across this advice when I collected my permit in Alice to do ‘the loop’.
I guess I’ll be the judge tomorrow….

'Ellery Ck big hole'

Boys on their boat at Ormiston Gorge


cold?  what cold water?
The boys & I at the 'boat station'
Our overnight camp at Redbank Gorge  - wind & all..


Ormiston Gorge campground

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