ALICE SPRINGS / EAST MACDONNEL RANGES

Woke during the wee hours of the morning with my legs on fire from the bites. I got up and slathered on the Stop Itch which gave some relief and had just started dozing off again when I was woken by the lightning, thunder and rain. That eventually died down and I dozed off again and woke about 6.30am.


These bites on my leg are very, very itchy so we went in and bought some calamine lotion this morning. I put that on all the bites while we were still in the carpark – what a relief!

We saw something this morning we didn’t expect to see –the Todd River was flowing! So much so we could only get to our caravan park the long way around. The causeway we would normally cross was under water.

We headed out to the East Macdonnell Ranges with the plan to drive to N’dhala Gorge (90km), have a look around there then stop at a few places on the way back, mainly Corroboree Rock, Jessie Gap and Emily Gap. We headed along the Ross Highway and ended up stopping at Corroboree Rock for lunch. We explored a bit then continued on. The N’dhala Gorge is only 11km from the Ross Highway but it is 4x4 only. Because of the rains there were quite a few water crossings and the track was pretty rough in some parts. This was Royce’s first attempt at 4 wheel driving and he did really well. There was a stretch of the road we nicknamed Budgie Alley because there were so many of them flying around. We finally arrived at N’dhala Gorge and set ourselves up for the 1km return walk to look at the Aboriginal petroglyphs and paintings. We got about 200m along the path, found one lot of petroglyphs and were then cut off by water so we had to turn around and head back. A bit disappointing but the drive and the scenery was great so it was worthwhile anyway.

On the way back we spotted a small herd of brumbies. There were 3 foals and a couple of the mares appeared to be heavily pregnant. We took some photos from the car but when we got out to see if we could get some better shots they took off like lightning!

I waded across two water crossings so I could photograph and video Royce coming across in the car. The water in the first one was a bit cold but it was amazing how much better my legs felt afterwards. That water seemed to really soothe the bites (at least for a short while)!

We turned onto the Ross Highway and about 800m up the road we came across a small brown mare on the side of the road. She was wearing a rope halter and was hobbled. She was a bit skittish but Raymond got hold of the halter rope and he and Hazel stayed with the horse while Royce and I drove back to see if we could find someone who may be able to do something about her. We drove back the way we had come (2 water crossings) and looked for someone in the campgrounds but whilst there seemed to be quite a few campers we couldn’t find anyone of ‘authority’. We turned back and when we got to the Ross Highway we went on to the Ross River Resort. We found two people just pulling out in their vehicle and when we told them about the horse they said they had been looking for it for about a week and were just heading out again to have another look! We all drove back to where Raymond, Hazel and the horse were waiting. The hobbles were removed and we were thanked and we took off again.

On the way home there were some small water crossings and Royce took great pleasure in splashing through them (in the hope of removing some of the mud caked on the car from the Ndhala Gorge Road). We encountered quite a few cows on the edge of the road in a number of different places, we saw a flock of red tailed black cockatoos (tried to get some photos but not much success), and we spotted a small eagle (or large hawk or similar) grab something off the road and fly off with it.

All in all a really lovely day but we didn’t get to Jessie Gap or Emily Gap. We may have to do that another day.

The Todd River flowing across the causeway to our caravan park

Corroboree Rock

On the way to Ndhala Gorge

On the Ross Highway

Some of the brumbies. We counted 9 in all.  the middle one is a foal with mum on the right

One of Royce's water crossings

The little mare we found on the side of the road

One of the red tail black cockatoos.  if you look closely you can see a little bit of the red underside of its tail