May 13th, 2016

Day 45: The Outback – Day 2, West MacDonnell Ranges & Mereenie Loop

We woke up pretty tired, as we have a bit of a rough night camping. First of all, Lindsay insisted on buying the 2-person tent the day before, rather than spending an extra AUD$15 for a 3-person tent: big mistake. While the dimensions on the box were accurate in the sense that the air mattress fit while deflated, once inflated our heads and feet didn’t fit inside the tent without hitting the sides of the tent without getting soaked in condensation. Oops. There also seemed to be a movie marathon going on in the staff quarters, which made it hard to fall asleep at the early hour of 8:30PM.

Oh well, it’s a new day, with more things to see! The rest of the Red Center Way drive through the MacDonnell Ranges had recommended stops about every 30min, which kept us very busy all morning.

Driving into the Red Center – unforgiving terrain, as we saw from the multitude of broken & rusting vehicles on the side of the road. We brought 5 gallons of water as a precaution.

 

First stop of the day: Ellery Creek Big Hole. A great spot for swimming in the heat of the day, but the desert was still freezing when we stopped by, so no dip for us.

 

Next stop: Serpentine Gorge. A steep climb lead to a view of a few puddles at the bottom of a deep gorge – guess you can’t be picky about your water sources in the desert.

 

View from the top of Serpentine Gorge

Igor found another dead tree at the top of the gorge to admire

Further down the road, our next attraction is the Ochre Pits – multicolored rock walls that the Aboriginal people used to create body paint for traditional ceremonies

 

Exploring the Ochre Pits for a few minutes until the bush flies chased us away

A water-filled oasis at Ormiston Gorge

 

The day was heating up fast! The water is actually freezing, but will look pretty tempting by the afternoon.

Running out of gas is really dangerous in the Outback, so we were adamant that we would fill up every opportunity possible. We made an obligatory stop at the Glen Helen Resort, which had one circa 1970s gas pump (the last for 200+KM), and purchased our permit for the Mereenie Loop road, which crosses Aboriginal land.

The lone gas pump at Glen Helen

 

Heading out into the wilderness – nothing but snakes waiting for us!

 

Last rest stop on paved road – the Gosses Bluff Crater, created by an asteroid impact 150 million years ago

For anyone interested in driving the Mereenie Loop to Kings Canyon, 4WD is a MUST – the majority of the is not paved, and the “gravel” road is not maintained at all. We literally passed a muffler on the of the road, which must have fallen out of someone’s car due to the extreme rattling. There is only one rest stop along the entire 100KM track, which we couldn’t enjoy due toll the bush flies. If we could do it again, we wouldn’t bother going out of our way for the Mereenie Loop. The only wildlife we saw were horses, a well-endowed donkey, and a few kipara (bush turkeys).

Igor made me pull over to take a picture of the donkey’s schlong. That’s what I get for travelling with a boy.

 

The Mereenie Loop: 100KM of bumpy dirt road – 4×4 is a must

So happy to reach the end of the loop, and paved roads at King’s Canyon

We also had a very upsetting experience once we got off the Mereenie Loop back on to paved road. After hours of zero wildlife, and gleeful that we could once again drive at 110KMPH, we relaxed a bit too much and didn’t notice two kipara eating some bush melons on the side of the road. One of the startled kipara flew into the road as we drove by and got clipped by our rear view mirror – our first (and hopefully last) roadkill. Luckily the bird was too small to damage the car, but it left Lindsay shaken up, and drove poor animal-loving Igor into a sad depression.

 

The delicious bush-melon & our Rav4 – the downfall of the poor bush-turkey

Once we got to Kings Canyon, we checked-in to the camp ground and decided to simply inflate our mattress in the back of the SUV and sleep in the car. Good thing too, because dingos and wild dogs were roaming all over the campground (We can totally see how the infamous case of Azaria Chamberlain happened – who in their right mind would leave a baby laying around when wild dogs are bold enough to steal food out of the back hatch of people’s car? Common sense, people). We tried to enjoy the sunset over King’s Canyon, but once again the bushflies chased us away.

Wild dogs & dingos in the area! Lock up your food & babies!

 

A large gathering for the King’s Canyon sunset – but Lindsay couldn’t handle the flies

 

We snapped a picture as quickly as we could, and ran away from the flies

For dinner, we found out the resort next door had just reopened their restaurant, Carmichaels, which had kangaroos & camel on the menu. Unfortunately, the opening wasn’t running that smoothly yet, and the camel was unavailable (probably a good thing) – still tasty food though. We raised a somber glass to the passing of the poor kipara (who we have now named “Dodo”).

 

A wake for Dodo – the Australian Bustard (AKA bush-turkey)

Before heading to bed, we returned to the sunset viewing platform (now bushfly-free), to enjoy the starry sky in solitude.

 

Finding peace in the Outback