NT - East Macdonnell Ranges

We spent three days in the East Macdonnell ranges and were fascinated with the many different geological formations. We were driving around spellbound, appreciating the upheaval that had occurred in the earths crust eons ago to create these mountain ranges.

We drove on a 4 Wheel drive track to N’Dhala Gorge Nature Park which has over 6,000 aboriginal carvings. This park is unique in the fact that much of the art is not sign posted so when you find something yourself it is very exciting. It is hard to believe that some of the carvings are as much as 10,000 years old. While walking these mountain tracks Mike and I have seen many beautiful birds, try to photograph and then identify them in our now much used bird book. Many of them are very small and so colourful.

Another afternoon was spent at Trephina Gorge which has spectacular walking and hiking trails along the top of the Quartzite cliffs. After you are totally exhausted from walking up and down the cliff tops, you descend into the dry sandy river bed which you then have to walk along to get back to the car park. Along the way there are huge river red gums which give you shade from time to time. Needless to say, this was another 35 degree day so we were looking forward to getting back to the caravan and cooling off. (A beer is always very welcoming at the end of these hot energetic days).

Further into the ranges we drove to Artlunga Historical Reserve which was the site of an old gold mining town. We climbed down into an abandoned gold mine which makes you appreciate how hard these men worked. The gold from this area was attached to the quartz deposits so they had to grind the quartz down first and then extract the gold.