The West Macdonnells and Uluru

I should have said Glen Helen instead of Helenvale in blog3. Sorry!

We have now seen the gorges of the West MacDonnell Ranges and every gorge was different and spectacular. Ormiston Gorge is the favourite of painters and the rock sides glow with the red centre brightness. The waters are cool to cold so no-one dares to take the plunge. The biggest event for Barry is to see and photograph the Black breasted buzzard which we have all now seen; how could we mistake it! There are plenty of flowering bushes too with honey grevillea seen in many places. We now can identify the witchety bush, the wattle 'dead finish' and the bright blue isotoma which grew in the rocks. We saw the one and only grass tree but neglected to photograph it.

We are now at Uluru and have completed the circuit around the base of the rock. It is hard to call it just a rock as it glows at sunset and sunrise and has multiple facets depending on your vantage point of life. Amazingly we had rain a day ago and this has encouraged more plant life. Animal life is very scarce: dingoes howl in the night and e have seen a few lizards/goannas.

No thorny devils, except in captivity.

The amazing MacDonnell ranges

Yesterday we explored the gorges in the East MacDonnell range. These ranges are second to the Great Dividing Range of which we are most familiar. We are constantly surprising by the amount of water that is in the creeks here. Sometimes, it is visible, sometimes it flows beneath the sandy river beds; it is that gentlest of slope down to Lake Eyre. Trephina Gorge, in the East Macdonnells, had water enough for a brave couple (not us!) to take the plunge. We opted for a walk which took us up the rocky side of the gorge and down along the river bed. Once again, Grevillea Wickhamii was at its showy best with a few eramophila flowers joining the competition. Iron oxide colours the gorge walls and contrasts magnificiently with the clear blue skies above. Barry has given Annette a free range to catch dragonflies but frogs are rare. The spinifex pigeons seem quite tame, judging by the number of close-range photos we have been able to take. In this region you are certainly aware of the Aboriginal groups’ ties to the land: it is a concept hard to understand but the caps of the MacDonnell range do seem to have a processional caterpillar look to them. For those of us willing to put feet into the cold stream, there was a view of some rock art depicting the caperillar dreaming.

Today we explored the West MacDonnell Ranges- but in the relative comfort of a tour 4-Wheel drive vehicle along with driver. Our planned route took in Hermannsburg and the ancient Finke River which we crossed several times. Despite the bumpiness of the journey, we still had a good sighting of the Major Mitchell cockatoo. Our main destination was the Palm Valley. Here there is a stand of the rare of the Central Australian red cabbage palm (Livistona mariae). Cycads ((macrozamia macdonnelli) also grown here. A walk along one side of the gorge gave us yet another sighting of the spinifex pigeon and some zebra finches. These was plenty of the rock fuchsia in flower (Eramophila freelingii) as well as ptilotis and chocolate cassia (Cassia pleurocarpa). Despite it not being blue, we could identify one of the indigo plants ((Indigofera basedowii) which had almost finished flowering with one of two red flowers still lingering on. We shall have to read up more on the geology to fill the gaps in the descriptions of the gorges.

Alas, we had only half an hour at the historic site of Hermannsburg. We had read much on the Strehlow family so a visit to Hermannsburg was a tribute to Carl Strehlow and his son Ted Strehlow who had earned great respect amongst the Aranda peoples. The house occupied by Pastor Carl Strehlow and his wife Frieda still stands and serves an excellent apple strudel. It must have been a welcome relief to the family in summer as its thick walls kept it cool. The old church still stands as well as some of the outer buildings. Frieda notes that her sons grew up speaking German at home, learned English at school and the local Aboriginal dialect (Arrerente) when playing with the other children. The Strehlows grew vegetables and date palms and raised some dairy cows in the good years.

Tomorrow we pull down the tent and head for Helensvale, also in the West MacDonnells. There is promise of a visit to a crater left by a comet millions of years ago.

further kilometres

In planning our trip members nominated what special things they wanted to do. Nancy wanted to see the Devil’s Marbles (Karlu Karlu) at dusk and dawn; Neil wanted to do some fossicking at Gem tree. We cannot yet compare the former with Uluru, but we were awe-struck by the brilliant glow on the rocks at sunset and then the ‘wow’ factor kicked at dawn. How glad we wer that we made the effort to rise at 6am for that early morning walk to catch the spectacular scenery at this sacred site for all Australians.

Today we fossicked for garnets some 30km from Gem Tree on the Plenty Highway. The site was a bit of a surprise as it turned out to be a hole in the red earth. We had picks and shovels, water and sieves and left to find the red garnets amongst the earth and quartz. Eventually we learned what to look for and we all managed to find a good number. Back at Gem Tree the expert sorted though our finds were sorted and to our surprise we all had managed to find some of value for would-be cutting and setting. No millionaires today. Just as enjoyable was a botanical/birding walk. More budgies, more zebra finches and a sighting of a grey falcon. Mulga (acacia aneura) is the dominant species here along with corymbia terminalis. The mulga ants build a fascinating circular nest decorated with dead mulga leaves around the edge. We were able to watch the ants carry the leaves which were about 3 times the length of the ant.

Despite the long boring road journeys between places (mulga, mulga and more mulga) it is worth the agony see such amazing places.

We are now at Alice Springs and it is cold cold cold- even during the day! If ever you are here, visit the Alice Springs Desert park. The spinifex pigeons - which we tried to photograph at Mary Ann Lake without success - were within camera range at the ASDP. The guides are extremely knowledgable and led us to three bush stone curlew. It is not the best time of year for flowering plants but the bird life was colourfull and plentiful. We can, however, now recognise 'Dead Finsh' if not by sight then by touch! It seems you can user the thorns to remove worts but the cure seemed worse than the problem. We have a week in Alce and will spend some time travelling in the MacDonnell ranges as well as taking in some culture.

central oz trail

Budgies at the waddi

The wide brown land? The wide green grassy land now! Fat cows, grazing camels, happy birds. The driving has been relentless in order to bring us to our main destination- central Australia- but we have not neglected to look around us at the green expanse which is now western Queensland. Having missed it on our last trip, we were on the look-out for the Mitchell grasses which Major Mitchell wondered at on his travels in this region. We asked everyone we met but, alas, no Mitchell grasses until today (Friday, 30th) when we found Mitchell barley grass. We know we are in the arid zone as mullamulla (ptilotis) are in flower along with the rattle pea. Mulla mulla reminds me of Ida Joyce Smith who first told me about these pretty flowers. And who can forget the smell of the Gidgea?
Today’s amazing ‘find’ was the waddi tree in Boulia. This tree (Acacia peuce) is only found in two or three places in Queensland and this specimen is sacred to the local aboriginal peoples. As we snapped the tree from every angle we looked up to see two budgies! Two budgies which are free to roam the outback, fly where-ever and enjoy the view from the waddi tree, along with the flock of chattering galahs.
02 May. We are now in Tennant Creek having driven from Camooweal. A stop along the way was most enjoyable because the flock of zebra finches were still there since a few years ago when we passed this way on our journey around WA. We filled the bird bath and down they all came for a photo opportunity. We are enjoying the night skies and the magic of the outback. The plant life is constanty changing and our names of plants of the arid zone are coming back slowly. Holly grevillea (Grevillea wickhamii) is in flower and Neil found a beautiful gum tree (yes, it was Neil) which we think is eucalyptus terminalis.
More in the next internet town- which are few and far between.

solar powered

Cunningham's skink (Egernia cunninghami) was seen on the climb to the top of Bald Rock. Note its very distinct colouring on its head - a veritable red-head!