Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Wild horses on the way through the Western MacDonnell Ranges.
Red Bank Gorge with a permanent pool of ice-cold water (in the middle of a desert). Access deeper into the gorge is by wading through this pool or floating through on an inflatable thingy.Ormiston Gorge - with the dry Finke river bed. The Finke is supposedly a 100 million year old
river that flows into the sands of the Simpson Desert and never reaches the sea. There are a few rock pools of water even in dry seasons that sustains plant and animal life in these harsh regions.We set off from Palm valley to Hermannsburg, where there used to be a German Mission. This was also where Namatjira lived and there is an art gallery, exhibiting some of his work, and a cultural precinct that can be visited. We stopped at the petrol station which also doubled up as a take-away cafe. Next door was a building which served as a supermarket selling almost anything....bicycles, clothes, food etc. It also offered services like internet centre, bank and post office. There was a notice at the bank teller's window which contained, among others, instructions like: “Do not sign cheques for others; Bring your passbook if you want to withdraw money; and Don't give (an aboriginal word, which probably means teller) a hard time”.
But we learnt at the petrol station that the town was closed, for a funeral, and so none of the places we wanted to visit would be open. So we drove around a little taking in the brightly coloured houses, kids playing and dogs lazing around, and then headed towards Namatjira drive which is a scenic route along the West MacDonnells. featuring the country that is captured in many of Namatjira's paintings.
