The aim today was to was to explore more of the West MacDonnell ranges, its gorges and waterholes- take 2 🎬. Job done ✔️ 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The positives of last nights horrendous storm with its 22.4mm rain is that we get to see water flowing in the Todd River and creek beds that were previously dry 🥰
We headed deeper into the West MacDonnell National Park, 133km to Glen Helen Gorge/Yapulpa, a dep permanent waterhole in the Finke River.
It’s a 800m walk over the dry river bed and through 2m high reeds to the waterhole, but it is so worth it 💗and as a bonus we had it all to ourselves 🏊🏻🏊🏻♀️
After our swim, MANC had a go and dipped its tyres in the river it flowed over the road on our way to the Mount Sonder Lookout. From here you can look down in the Finke River, one of the world's oldest watercourses, which flows south from here for 650km to be lost in the sands of the Simpson Desert.
Next stop was Ormiston Gorge, and its beautiful year round waterhole which we again had all to ourselves 🏊🏻♀️🏊🏻.
Got to love traveling out of season 💙
On our way back we detoured to the Ochre Pits, the amazing colours of the natural ochres in the cliff face are so beautiful in the sunlight. The local Arrernte people still mine and use the ochre from here which is regarded as one of the best quality in the country.
Returning to Alice we spotted the Ghan at the station, ready to continue on its journey to DarwinRead more
November 3, 2025 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C