NORDLYS - On to the Big Red Centre

On to the Big Red Centre

NORDLYS

David and Annette Ridout

Sat 16 Sep 2006 03:54

On to the Big Red Centre

King's Canyon

15th September 2006

Well things turned out differently than planned. Annette suffered a lot of pain from a muscle spasm in her back after we arrived at Kununurra. for some days she was very much hors de combat. A physio achieved nothing, a chiropractor made it worse and an apparently dishy Dutch doctor at the Kununurra health centre told her she would have to be patient but that nothing serious had happened. By this time she was very glad to know the latter. I went on a flying tour to the Bungle Bungles by myself as Annette would never have managed to sit the hour and a half each way. It was a well worth while trip and I got a really good view of two huge cattle stations, each about half the size of Wales, and Lake Argyle. The latter man made lake is so large that any commercial vessel on it has to have ocean going certification. We also flew over the Argyle diamond mine. This I discovered produces about a third of the world's diamonds. In my ignorance I had never heard of it . The riches that are being dug out of Australia are many and varied but all have one thing in common, the amounts recovered are enormous by any standards. The Bungle Bungles are a collection of odd shaped rocks that are so remote they were only discovered in the early '80s. I went on a 4WD bus tour and we walked into one of the canyons. This was unfortunately done in the middle of the day and the temperature was in the low forties. The heat thrown off the rocks had to be experienced to be believed. After a week in a small apartment with a beautiful view we left with a bed for Annette made in the back of Gromit, our faithful Toyota.

The layered formation in the Bungle Bungles.

The black layer has microbes in it and is 'alive'.

In the wet season the black apparently turns green.

Driving 700 km straight off was the only sensible option and alas 400 of those was on the corrugated dirt of the Buchanan Highway. This stretch was enlivened for me by three things. The groans from the back of the car, one km of bush fire on one side of the road that was going hard enough for me to feel warm through the shut window and then being hit by a small dust twister. This mini tornado formed about a hundred meters in front of me, gathered momentum and then came straight at me. All this took about five seconds. Everything went brown and dark and we emerged with grass and dirt everywhere. I cleared the radiator, bumper and radio aerial from grass and slightly shattered proceeded.

Two nightstops in rough motels and sixteen hundred km later we arrived at Alice Springs. Booking into a nice resort we collected ourselves. Annette was far from well but was improving. Here we were lucky as it was the last day of a fortnights arts and music festival and also we were in town for Desert Mob. The latter is a huge exhibition of desert art from many of the outlying local communities. This is big business these days and the standard was very high, so were the prices. Wanting to make a purchase we eschewed the more traditional and popular dot paintings and bought a water colour that to our mind shows off the outback colours and is a little bit in the style of Albert Namatjira, the man who first made Aboriginal water colours famous. We also went to a didgeridoo concert that was an unforgettable experience. I had no idea that the instrument in the hands of a world expert, Andrew Langford, could achieve so much.

Andrew Longford in full flow. We had attended a lesson and history

lecture he gave in the morning. All this proved was that our lips do not naturally vibrate enough!

Alice turned out to be a much nicer place than we were expecting and to turn up at such an interesting time was certainly cream on the cake. By now Annette was at least able to sit in the front seat again when we set off early after five days in Alice in a westerly direction along the MacDonnell Ranges. We walked into and on top of Serpentine gorge and then stopped for the night in Orminston Gorge at a pleasant but rather crowded camp site. This gorge was spectacular, an adjective that I am aware I use rather a lot when describing the outback. Walking up a narrow path with sometimes a sheer drop on one side we had a great view down into the gorge. We walked back along the dried up river bed in the gorge bottom. Next morning I was up at 0630 on the aforementioned narrow path to capture the sun's rays as they slowly descended the east facing gorge cliff side.

The whole MacDonnell range experience was proving to be enjoyable but we little guessed that it was about to get a lot better. I had noticed that just off our track there was the remains of a crater that had been formed by a meteor hitting the earth. A 4WD track took us the five km into the crater. The experience was very worthwhile but the whole is more impressive when viewed from some distance as the 5km circle of hills rise out of the plain. Apparently the original crater was 20km across and represents one of the largest known meteor craters on the earth's surface. On to Hermmansburg where we visited the old mission. This was started by German Lutherans in the 1860s and with one small break continued up to 1988 when the whole estate was given back to the Aboriginals. I simply state the following facts. The garage/shop is staffed by two Chinese girls. The apparently well built and newish chalet style bungalows that have been erected for the local community are so surrounded by rubbish and old rusting car wrecks that both of us felt we really wanted out of the place.

Luckily the exact opposite was nearby. 20 km down a very much 4WD track brought us to Palm Valley camp site. One of the nicest we have yet to visit. Here we enjoyed the excellent company of Michael and Lynne Hancock a couple our sort of age from Queensland. Much beer, wine and whisky was consumed round the camp fire. Next morning we got up early and took Gromit another 5 km down one of the roughest tracks I have been on to the head of the valley. This was followed by a 6km walk up to the top of Palm Gorge and back down its riverbed. Named after the fact that palm trees and cycads flourish in the gorge itself despite the near desert that surrounds it. We did this trip with Michael and Lynne as they have a camper van fixed on the back of their 4WD flatbed so to go in their vehicle means striking camp. We now realise that a tent has some definite advantages. Next day we drove 200km through desert type bush during which we saw a bustard and also a herd of wild horses. Stopping to watch the latter we realised that we were witnessing a lone stallion trying to get into the herd. The master of his mares was having none of it. Both stallions were large and powerful beasts. I am not up in hand sizes but both were large hunter size and looked very fit despite the poor vegetation.

So dear readers I bring this to an end. I realise that it may appear as if we are seeing nothing but gorges, which is certainly true. What I probably fail to get across is that this part of the outback is so vibrant in colour and majesty that it never gets boring and our journey through it has been a real eye opener. As I write this a pink galah is chattering in the branch above my head, a helicopter is taking people to see King's Canyon where we will go and do the long walk tomorrow, the sky is horizon to horizon blue and Annette has just returned from the resort shop with an ice cream.