Letho's Blog

Dec 16, 2010

After a fantastic time in the MacDonnell Ranges it was time to say goodbye, finally leave Alice Springs and head north to Tennant Creek. However, we were keen to use the last remaining hours for a short trip to the closest gaps in the East MacDonnell Ranges.

Before that we took the opportunity to do some sightseeing in Alice Springs itself – at last. We hadn’t visited any museums, wildlife parks or whatsoever around there so far and reckoned it not to be worth the time. A short drive to Anzac Hill for an overview over the city was fine, though.

Afterwards we took the Ross Highway into the East MacDonnell Ranges again. After only 10 kilometers we reached Emily Gap, its Aboriginal name being Anthwerrke.

It is an important site for the Eastern Arrente Aboriginals, therefore you will find a few Aboriginal paintings in very good condition as well. This time they are not enclosed by fences, so you get a really close look -  better show some respect and don’t mess around with them.

Next stop was Jessie Gap, also only a few kilometers away. You will find some well-conserved paintings here, too.

We left out Corroborree Rock, another few kilometers east, Arltunga, an old goldrush mining ghost town, and Ruby Gap National Park this time. This gives us a perfect excuse to return there someday. Did we mention already that somehow we had fallen in deep love with this impressive landscape called the Outback?

We had a lot of driving before us in the next few days, up to Tennant Creek and to the Devil’s Marbles, and all the way up to Cairns after that. Hence we hit the road, to be precise the Stuart Highway. On our way up we passed the Tropic of Capricorn.

After a lot of driving we reached the Devil’s Marbles Campground in the dark, attacked by countless mosquitoes, set up our tent as fast as humanly possible and prepared ourselves to get up early the next day to wander around some fabulous rocks.