Not the Larapinta Stage Race - Day 2

Sunday, 19 August 2018

Today was a big day and I'm writing this from bed with the electric blanket on in lieu of a bath as the place we are staying only has a shower.

We left home at 8am and drove the 150km out to the furtherest point of the Larapinta Trail.  The standard Larapinta hike goes for 12 days if you do it all and on the last day the hikers do the 15.8km out and back climb of the highest point of the West MacDonnell ranges - Mt Sonder, which allows them to look back over where they have walked.  Today we climbed it and looked back over where we hadn't walked.  

But first I want to talk about that road that we 'definitely' needed a full size 4wd for. This is it:

OMG. So. Treacherous.

With the worlds most graded gravel track behind us we set off from the carpark at about 10am.   I took it pretty slow on the way up as I woke up with a cold, so Jon ran ahead of me on the uphills then looped back about 50 zillion times.   

It wasn't that hot today - when we left the carpark it was 18 degrees, and when we got back it was about 22. Very pleasant for hiking/jogging.  

The route featured a few downs as well as a lot of up. That's the peak in the distance ahead of Jon in the photo on the left. 

The views from the top were spectacular - The photos don't do it justice.  I never realised how mountainous it was all around this area.

We made it back to the car just after 1pm, but there was no time to dilly-dally as we had another adventure planned for the afternoon. Just 30k down the road was Ormiston Gorge, another must-see destination according to those in the know.  Although the 9k circuit hike was going to be a bit arduous after the 15k morning jog-hike, we didn't want to have to drive all the way back out another day, so it was now or never.   

And it was a great hike.  The trail wound its way over some low hills then down into an open pound area with escarpents all around. Then it hit the river and followed the gorge ending up at the swimming hole just a few minutes walk from the car park. 

 We actually ran into a few stragglers from the race at Ormiston Gorge, as their 22k run finished there today. A very close encounter with the race!

The colours of the rocks in the gorge were amazing. Really red in some parts, purple and pink in others 

It gets so cold at night that our swim was pretty brief! I reckon the water was easily as cold as some of the rivers on the Overland Track! 

It felt good to get wet though.

Despite it being almost dusk the long drive back to Alice Springs was uneventful. In fact it is noticeable how little wildlife we see out here. I think we saw about 10 birds today and that was it! No kangaroos (dead or alive), or anything else.  I guess we aren't looking in the right places.

We're not sure what we will do tomorrow but whatever it is I suspect it won't be quite as arduous!