We awoke to a cold but fine morning again, and packed up
over breakfast before heading further up the gorge to Palm Valley itself. This time it got REALLY quite testing for me
as there were several creek crossings, and some steep rock “steps” up which we
had to get the car to climb ! The photos tell part of the story, but suffice it
to say that the 4 km trip took about 40 minutes !!
But it was worth it !!
3 or 4 other 4WD’s were parked on the rocky part of the creek bed, and we then walked up the rim of the gorge,
then back down along the creek bed.
About 2 hours or so. Incredible
plants and rock formations, and is the only place in Central Australia where these
Red Cabbage Palm Trees are found, left over from millions of years ago. And combined with them are all the cycads
that cling to the cliff edges, also left over from a long forgotten era. The
location was stunning in itself, but was made all the more special by the
difficulty of getting there. Once again,
a big thank you for my 2 inch suspension lift, D – We really needed it today !!
After we had negotiated our way back down the track 4 kms to
the camp site, we had a picnic lunch there before heading back down the track
to Hermannsburg. We drove around, but it really was not really
worth stopping, and the one “historical building” (the old mission), seemed to
be deserted and run down, and had a fairly high entry fee, so we gave it a
miss. Not very impressed………..
We then back tracked west 40 kms before turning north on the
???? road towards Alice Springs through the West McDonnell Range and the
multiple gorges that are found along that road.
First stop was at a meteorite landing site from 140 million years ago,
where the mountains thrown up look very impressive from the outside, but once you are inside the crater has now
filled with sediment so there is no real impression of size. Interesting spot
though, and has a great Aboriginal Story from their Dreamtime attached to it
about hunters and massacres, so that now no Aboriginal will live or even sleep
there, despite the natural shelter it provides
By now, for the first time on the trip, I was starting to
run out of fuel – 140 kms to Alice Springs, and I calculated I had enough fuel
for 135 kms, and after that I would be running on vapour !! Luckily, as evening approached, we turned into
the camp site at Glen Helen where they also had fuel – DISASTER – not only was
the campsite overflowing, but they had run out of fuel !!! Decision time – So we decided to go on 11
kms to the next camp site in Ormiston Gorge, and if we couldn’t beg, borrow or
steal fuel, we would come back to Glen Helen and wait for the fuel truck to
come ! And it was the right decision –
Ormiston Gorge Campsite was absolutely delightful. A new caretaker Nick had recently taken over
operations there and they had a delightful little kiosk, with great coffee, and
excellent carrot cake, and we were
soon setting up for the night. I then
saw a lady on her own parking up her mid size camper with a VERY flat tyre. To
cut a long story short, Yvonne and Nora were two “mature” ladies travelling
together but in separate vans, and Yvonne had totally shredded a tyre, and they
were standing there with an instruction manual trying to work out which end of
the jack to put under the van !! IN the ned 3 or 4 of us males got their spare
tyre on, only to find they had less than half the required pressure in ALL
their tyres ! Luckily we found someone with a compressor and soon had them all
correct – But they were still given a Cooper lecture about venturing into the
outback with unprepared vehicles !! If
that had happened out on the dirt road, they would have been in real strife !!
Anyway, Yvonne shouted us all a beer when we had finished,
and then, after chatting to the young Swiss couple camped next to us, we had
supper, I did some of my blog (still no wifi !) and turned in for a well earned
sleep.
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