25 Jul 10 – West MacDonnell Ranges

By Craig: The Mereenie Loop, as it’s referred to, is a road that circles past a number of gorges in the West MacDonnell Range area. The area in general had experienced some rain in recent times and floodways still required caution on approach.








Our first stop was at Gosse Bluff (Tnorala), the site of two happenings that left an imprint both geographically and culturally. The first was a significant meteor strike only several or so million years ago leaving a fairly large crater.


The second occurrence was the massacre of the aboriginal people who inhabited the meteor site. It appears, as history tells it, that two passing Aborigine tribesmen from out of town decided they didn’t like the inhabitants of the crater area so they massacred them. The two were hunted down by the extended family members and killed in revenge. Sounds like something the Vikings would have done. Ah! Human beings we are all the same!

We visited Redbank Gorge. Two camps were available, Woodlands & the Ridge which was further into the gorge area. What’s another kilometre or so?


Well in comparison the ridge camp ground won hands down for view and I was thankful we decided to do the extra section of road and check it out. A top little spot, looking down into Redbank Gorge and across to Mt Sonder.

With a camp fire and an extremely peaceful surrounding it was a good choice, even if only for one night. The next day we walked into the gorge, the walk included a stroll along a flat creek bed and a little rock hopping from time to time.

From time to time during our walk we encountered caves and although very little was written about them Sam and I upon inspection found old fire pits.

















Other gorges visited whilst travelling the loop were

Ormiston Gorge
























Ellery Creek

















On our first evening the cloud formation appeared to divide the evening sky, quite a spectacular view.














After a while you tend to get the glossed over gorged out feeling however Finke Gorge came with several crossings of the Finke River and a valley of palms to walk around.




Slightly different to deep ravines and sheer cliffs and provided a pleasant walk and a camp ground with solar hot water showers, a bonus for the smelly traveller.























By Lou: I’m glad we chose the ‘long way round’ to get to Alice Springs, as the West MacDonell Rangers were beautiful. Many of the paintings by Albert Namatjira feature this region. When we arrived at his monument we initially thought it was an old cottage chimney. It seems an odd tribute to a creative watercolour artist.












The first photo opportunity after leaving King's Canyon arrived pretty quickly.















The township of Herrmansberg was promoted as part of the tourist trail but apart from the roadhouse and a museum there wasn't much else to it. However, all the gorges along the way were pretty speccy.





Redbank Gorge was magnificent and despite being cold, as the only campers we lit a campfire, set up the PC and watched “Treasure Planet” in our own personal amphitheatre.

Finke Gorge National Park was also a highlight, crossing multiple pebbly river beds to get to the campground which had a few other campers but more importantly a solar hot water shower.









We shared a campfire with 3 lots of other campers: 1 had been preparing their Osso Bucco over a slow fire for hours and the smells were driving us insane, and the other 2 couples were farmers from near Bendigo Victoria and they also provided great company around the fire. As usual, Samuel had introduced himself to them long before we did and was delighted when the socialising reached its peak.