Day 26

Our pre retirement trial trip- day 26

The aim today was to explore the East MacDonnell ranges. Job done ✔️

We headed east, initially on sealed road through changing landscapes and cattle drinking from the floodways 🐂. Then on 33km of unsealed road to the Arltunga Historical Reserve to complete the loop around the remains of Arltunga- Central Australia’s first town, born out of the gold rush in 1887.

The track (Binns Track-a 2,230 km, 4WD route in NT that runs from Mount Dare on the SA border to Timber Creek) is described on the tourist info as an ‘unsealed gravel road’ with no specific warnings, but we wouldn’t want to drive a saloon car on it with its corrugations, many water filled floodways and sticky red mud.
We aired down but some sections were worse than the Oodnadatta😳

We covered 70km of dirt road and found a pub with no beer🍺❌, well it probably did but it was shut 😢

Next we found a waterhole with no water 🏊🏻❌ at Trephina Gorge Nature Park , but what it does have is aboriginal art on the rock face of the gorge and the largest ghost gum tree in Australia 🪾

Before returning home we stopped at Yeperenye/ Emily and Jessie Gaps Nature Park, two small gaps in the Heavitree Range which are important spiritual sites to the Eastern Arrernte people, both depicting rock art but no photography allowed sorry 📸❌

A short walk to see the art at Jessie Gap, but walking through the waterhole was required at Emily Gap, and the artwork there depicting the Yeperenye (caterpillar) Dreaming story was worth it- got a little wetter than expected though 😜

After we returned home the Seagull went off for more adventuring on the MTB trail park and Justine settled into to some painting with her feathered friends 🦜🦜 (those that know Justine know she HATES birds up close) 😬Meer informatie