Decided to have a look at some of the sights and sites of the East MacDonnell Ranges today since we saw a lot of the West Macs last time we were up here.
The East Macs are maybe not quite as spectacular as the West, and consequently not as popular with the rubber necked tourist. We had a great day and saw some very different sights.
First stop was Corroboree Rock. Now depending on which book, magazine or pamphlet you subscribe to, this was a place where the Arrente people held sacred ceremonies, where they had corroborees, or none of the above because there is no permanent water there. The Arrente don't seem to know either, but it is a very sacred site nonetheless. The rock is quite impressive as you approach it but the biggest surprise is when you walk around the base of it and discover that it is so narrow from front to back:
Quite close to this is the oldest Ghost Gum in NT which is now on some protection list or other. It certainly is a beautiful tree. About 30 metres high and over 300 years old:
Next stop was the Arltunga Historical Reserve.
36 kilometers of corrugations later old Vibratum had done his thing again, and the $14 rubber brackets I bought from ARB to anchor the shovel to the roof rack had decided to let said shovel slide slowly rearwards. Not bad enough to actually fall off, but I had to push it back where it belonged every time we stopped. I could feel my Father in Law looking over my shoulder the next day as I fixed this by screwing a cup hook through each rubber bracket into the shovel handle. I'm sure Bob would have been proud :)
The first thing you see on arrival is the Arltunga Pub - unfortunately it has no beer (or any other form of alcohol) and is only open on weekends - way to pull the tourists!
Arltunga was the site of a failed Ruby rush (turned out they were garnets, not the same thing at all really) followed by a gold rush in the 1880s. While nothing like Bendigo or Ballarat it was still a significant mining area and Arltunga was the first official town in Central Australia (Stuart/Alice Springs was just a few huts at the time) with a Government Works Area with a post office, police station, blacksmith, assayer and ore stamper were set up and largely remain as fairly intact ruins today. The police station has been restored as there was a very good photographic record of what it looked like. Conditions were extremely tough for the miners. Firstly they had to cart their belongings (often by wheelbarrow) over 600ks of rough tracks from Oodnadatta. Then there was the chronic lack of food and water with a consequentially high cost of living. On top of all this there was the climate - it was only 28C here today (sorry, didn't mean to make you all jealous in Melbourne - much...) and I couldn't imagine how anyone would cope with the hard manual labor involved in mining for gold - and this is WINTER! To top it all off, when the gold ran out, most of the miners headed off a new strike at Whycliffe Well only to be faced with an outbreak of typhoid soon after arriving.
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| Boy Toys from years gone by |
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| Not from the original rush, but a relic all the same... |
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| For making pasties??? |
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| Cemetery |
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| This guy must have been important to rate the stone wall around his grave. |
From here it was on to N'Dhala Gorge.
More 4x4 driving, including eight wet river crossings. Even got some water over the bonnet - great fun all round.
N'Dhala Gorge is on the Ross river and features many petroglyphs (rock carvings) which are believed to be up to 10,000 years old and tell many stories of the Arrente peoples dream time. My personal theory is that they are the ancient equivalent of today's spray can graffiti - bored teenagers head out into the rocks and do some tagging with a couple of rocks. Prove I'm wrong :)
Headed back towards Alice from here with plans to stop at Emily Gorge on the way. Emily Gorge is only about 16 ks from town and apparently contains some significant rock paintings. We can neither confirm nor deny this though, as when we arrived in the car park, some of the traditional owners were setting up for a family gathering with lots of loud music and refreshments..... We didn't like to intrude on the ritual, so headed back to camp for a bex and a lie down after all the day's rock hopping.
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