Alice Springs 1
general :: posted on June 19th, 2008
Firstly we need to have the iconic Sturts Desert Pea photo on the record! Abi snapped this beautiful flower in the gardens at the Araluen Centre in Alice Springs. She also did some superb drawing and painting of this flower which I will photograph for show and tell soon!
So we hired a Britz 4WD for our camping trip which was quite an efficient vehicle despite the funny appearance! Our first stop was the superb Ellery Creek Big Hole which is one of the few permanent water holes in the central desert region. With no rain for a long stretch the desert life is on the edge of survival, but Ellery is a cool green relief in the red landscape.
Despite the heat of the day, the water at Ellery stays cool to cold all year round. That’s as far as Abi wanted to go in! (or my mum!) The gorges that are features of the Macdonnell Range are points at which the geology has given way to create superb pockets of alternate life. The stunning folds in the rock face at Ellery are hard to describe and hard to photograph to give a true impression of the majesty of the dramatic curves.
Serpentine Gorge was struggling with the dry conditions and the once large pool (you can see the markings where the water used to be on the rock walls) is dried up to a puddle with fish struggling on the edge and waiting to be picked off by a passing bird of prey. We climbed up to the Serpentine lookout and could see the range running off in both directions - ancient and eroded.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:31 am
What an unusual, exotic and gorgeous flower! And such stunning scenery. Thanks for sharing. Oh, and did you get to see any ancient rock art?
June 20th, 2008 at 5:20 am
Yes I was lucky enough to see some painting on the last excursion we made to Trephina - I’ll post a couple of pictures further into the journey! They really were quite powerful in real life and hopefully some that is conveyed in the images.
The Sturt Desert Pea really stands out - the plant growing as an annual and spreading into quite a large ground cover - then the flower spikes bounce up in a very proud and strong display!
June 28th, 2008 at 4:14 am
The awesome desert pea! Cool. Its just something you never see around. Nice photo Linden.