Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

12^th of October

East MacDonald Ranges.

We headed east out of Alice on the Ross River road. The first attractions were the Emily and Jessie Gaps. These are two gaps the creeks have created in the mountain range, only a few kilometers apart. When we parked the car at Emily Gap, there was only one other vehicle there already. We headed the short walk to the gap, when we came across the two guy’s who’s car we had seen in the car park. They were filming with lots of gear, Zebra Finches coming into a waterhole. As this was the second film crew we have come across, we went to chat to them to find out what this was about. As it turned out they were two biologist working on a documentary about Australia’s animals. It was going to be a four part series and distributed via National Geographic. They had been working on it for a couple of years and were hoping it would hit the networks in a years’ time. At Emily Gap they were trying to catch close-ups of the Zebra Finch, but had been unlucky with the finches not coming or being too timid. We told them about Roma Gorge, where there were thousands of them, cramming into one small waterhole. They were quite interested, so we showed them the location on a map. They were going to check if they could get a license to film there. If you are a tourist, it’s not an issue. If you intend to use it for professional use, you have to get a license from the National Parks, plus the indigenous owners. They told us it was sometimes pretty hard and these licenses came with all kinds of weird restrictions! We had to walk back to the car park to show them the map and once there they showed us a trailer off their ipad with some raw cuts of the beginnings of the series. The working title is “Wild Australia” and it’s all shot in HD with very high speed cameras so they can show a lot of details in slow motion. The raw trailer was pretty impressive, so we are looking forward to see this series when it comes out.

We then went back to Emily Gap to walk through it. It’s quite wide with a sandy bottom. There was practically no water there except for a very small stale pool under one of the rock faces. On the cliff face there were some fascinating aboriginal rock art. The rock art represents the three caterpillars, which the Aboriginals believe created the MacDonald ranges. The Aboriginals didn't draw outlines of caterpillars, but the tracks they make. That explains the lines in the rock art.

We then moved over to the Jessie Gap, which was a bit narrower than Emily Gap. It also had Aboriginal rock art depicting the three caterpillars. These gaps cut through the range and expose the sandstone formations in towering cliff faces. It gives you a sliced view of the mountain range and the layering of the rocks.

From there we headed on-wards and stopped at Corroboree Rock. This is a sacred rock to the Aboriginals. It was a place where came to catch certain types of foods and would stay for some time. The rock isn’t very big, but is made out of harder sandstone than the surrounding landscape. Thus it has a slightly different colour and therefore stands out as different. As we arrived an empty tourist bus was gobbling up a horde of tourists that had just arrived from a walk around the rock. So, when we went for the walk we didn’t encounter anyone!.

The next attraction is called Trephina Gorge. It’s a gap that a creek has created in the range. At the Gorge we went for a rim walk along the left side of the Gorge. The land formations here are very interesting. The rim walk provided a fantastic view over the gorge. It ends by entering the gorge where the creek exits and you have to walk through the gorge back to the car park. The bed of the creek is only sand, so there was no rock hopping required in the creek bed. This is a pretty spectacular place, but not as scenic as Ormston Gorge on the West side of the range.

Near Trephina Gorge is a rock hole called John Hays Rockhole. It’s a small gorge with a water hole. As it required a 4wd with high clearance, it was ideal for us! It was only 6km track, but it wasn't bad at all. I bit rocky but no challenge whatsoever! At the end we parked the car and walked a couple of hundred meters into the rockhole. There was a bit of stale water there, which a bunch of Finches were lapping up. We decided not to do any longer walks there and returned back to the main road and headed to N’Dhala Gorge. It is furthest away near the Ross river. The track into it is about 12km long and you cross the Ross river a few times.

I must say that the drive into the N’Dhala Gorge is quite scenic. So before you get into the gorge you have already experienced a pretty spectacular landscape. As we pulled into the car park, it was just after one in the afternoon, so we had our lunch. Then we headed for the 1.5km return walk into the Gorge. This gorge is quite different to others. It’s very wide and has lots of side creeks coming into id, so it’s almost like a small narrow valley with side gullies. Along the track are lots of petroglyphs that were hewn into the rock by the Aboriginals. Some of them are estimated to be a few thousand years old. The petroglyphs were quite interesting. Some relate to the creation story with the Caterpillars, others we simply don’t know, either because their meaning has been lost or it relates to some secret stories, only told to you if you are initiated into the Aboriginal tribe. I find these carvings quite fascinating. Especially when you think about the fact that this evolved in isolation to any other cultures at the time. Along the walk we found many petroglyphs on the rocks. It’s almost like an art gallery! Just missing all the labels!

Once we had gone to the end of the walk (and even a bit further!) we headed back and drove into Alice again. We had our last dinner in Alice in the evening as we are heading to Queensland tomorrow morning.