The West MacDonnell Ranges

We decided to take a day trip out to see the sights of the West MacDonnell Ranges while in Alice. I rather wanted to go out to Palm Valley, as I distinctly remember going there as a kid. Dad had to hire a 4WD and we went out for the day. I remember it as a long dive and a gorgeous oasis in the middle of the desert. I also wanted to see the town of Hermansburg, which sounds lovely, but it was a whole other day trip and we really can’t do EVERYTHING. We decided to do a day trip down the Namatjira Drive to Glen Helen instead. We stopped at Standley Chasm, another memory from my childhood. Unfortunately, having started with Karajini NP and Echidna Chasm this trip, Standley Chasm was almost a let down! The kids got to the end and actually said “Is that it?! It doesn’t go any further??” Poor things.

We also stopped at the ochre pits and saw where the local aboriginals get their ochre from. It was (and possibly still is) traded all over Australia! I had been keen to do an artwork with the children, but then we saw this sign. Bummer.

We also stopped at Serpentine Gorge, and wandered along the marked trail to the gorge at the end. Yet again the children were under-impressed and in an effort to spice things up, we took the creek-bed track back to the car. This meant there were no trail markers and at one stage we were all somewhat worried we might have missed a turn somewhere. Fortunately that was not the case and we were very relieved to spot the creek crossing and the car soon after that.

Next stop was Glen Helen, a station and ‘resort’ with accommodation, caravan park and restaurant. We had decided to shout ourselves a meal. We still do ‘takeaway night’ which used to be once a week. Now we have lunches OR dinners. And I think its more like twice a week now.. So we had some enormous burgers in the wonderful air-conditioned comfort of the resort. Dunc and I were still toying with the idea of trying to ‘swing past’ Hermansburg, but when we asked a local, he said “you COULD do it, but it’ll be hours. As a father of 3 children, I say you should go past Ellery Creek Big Hole and take em for a swim instead.” So that’s what we did! The water was FREEZING which made for rather an abrupt change from the thermal pools we were so used to. Lexie got almost all the way in, Angus splashed and paddled and I got knee deep. It was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon.