It’s Sunday, pancake breakfast – what a crowd, they make good pancakes all on the back of a trailer.  We all got a name tag with our first name and city we come from so that we could socialise (this would be good in the suburbs at home too).  While we enjoyed our breakfast the caravan park’s washing machine did all our washing.

The day is overcast and cool.  By 10.45 we were on the road to explore the eastern MacDonnell Ranges.  Ron made sure that we were heading the opposite way from the shops. To see some more gaps & gorges – big rocks – until you get there & then it is WOW.  We are so insignificant when you look at these enormous rock formations, they have been there over 800 million years ago – we are not even a grain of sand. It is so rugged & beautiful, I wanted to capture it all but photos can’t do it justice.  Our first stop was to Emily’s Gap it was lovely but we would have had to cross a deep water hole (we didn’t have our swimmers and too many others around to take it all off).

The next stop was at Jessie’s Gap with a short walk to a piece of rock art.  A flock of budgerigars were very noisy & the first we have seen on the trip.  Corroboree Rock was next on the agenda, a rock formation that is unusual in that it is standing alone.  A nice walk around the base of it & a look at all the wildflowers in bloom.

Trephina Gorge was a lot more substantial and involved a walk of a few hundred metres on a sandy creek bed plus off with the shoes & through the shallow running water to get to the next part of the walk on the ridge on the other side of Trephina Creek.  As we climbed the ridge line at the side of the creek the views got better & better, plus a changing variety of wildflowers that we hadn’t seen before.  The views form the top of the gorge were absolutely amazing, the photos don’t even come close to doing it justice.  The river red gums were battered & bruised from recent flooding but they still looked stunning.  On the way out we stopped & had a look at the largest ghost gum in the East MacDonnell Ranges & it was stark white & looked very pretty in the sunshine with the backdrop of the ochre red ranges behind.  We then took a detour down the high clearance 4WD only track to John Hayes Waterhole, it was definitely high clearance 4WD & very slow going in parts, driving along creek beds, up the banks, over rocks, it had it all.

After that little escapade we hit the bitumen again & headed down to Ross River Resort & the turnoff to N’Dhala Gorge Nature Park.  The road was closed  into N’Dhala Gorge after the recent rain so we satisfied ourselves with crossing the vast sandy expanse of the dry Ross River which had very recently been graded & had all of the sand cleaned off the road.  Back to Alice Springs & the East MacDonnell Ranges took on a whole new perspective driving through them from a different direction.

The highlight of today’s trip was finding some Sturt’s Desert Pea in full flower.