West MacDonnells National Park – just west of Alice (3 nights)

Wow! This park is amazing with its gorges and waterholes of icy water for cooling down.  We camped at Ormiston Gorge which had the largest waterhole and a sandy beach, but visited Simpsons Gap, Ellery Waterhole and Redbank Gorge.  The latter was reached via a 1km rocky walk so there were less people there, we swim up the gorge for a hundred metres or so then rested on a sunny ledge.  We were lying there warming up and stoking a friendly gecko when Enzo said calmly “Oh look there’s a snake over there!”.  A long skinny black one, never a good sign, it was about 3m away which was too close for our liking so we made a hasty retreat back down the gorge.  We also saw black footed rock wallabies lounging in the shade in most places we stopped. 

At Redbank Gorge after swimming up the gorge

The National Park Rangers are very friendly and back at camp there was a nature talk one afternoon where the young ranger told us about the various wildlife signs to look out for, such as their droppings (too much information perhaps).  There was a great walk from the campsite out to far  end of the gorge and then you walk through the gorge crossing icy water at one point (up to my chest height) holding your pack above your head.  I took off early one morning to walk it and then John did it the next day, fantastic scenery in a quiet environment (no offence kids, but…).

the waterhole at Orminston Gorge