29th to 30th August - Ellery Creek to Ormiston Gorge

We start packing up and Janiece says she has a change of plans, she is on a bit of a "journey" and needs to chill out more with her new found (like minded) hippie friends.    We don't mind so much as 8 days is probably enough and we can continue on our little "journey".   We head off to Ormiston Gorge for a couple nights, on the way we stop off at Serpentine Gorge and do a gruelling hill climb to the lookout, but it was well worth it.

The bottom of Serpentine Gorge

 The top of Serpentine Gorge, the track up is steep and the steps are natural stone, it's amazing how they do these tracks.   That's my Darl pretending he is superman again!  It is breathtaking up here.

We settle into Ormiston, this place has toilets and showers for $6.60 pp pn.  We got our Permit to travel over the 153kms dirt Mereeni loop (from nearby Glen Helen Gorge resort), Denise and Cyril said the road was fine, just graded and minimal corrugations, okay we will give it a go.  This road is through aboriginal land, hence permit is required.

Bottom of Ormiston Gorge

We swim and do the Ghost Gum walk at Ormiston.    The scenery blows us away, we thought Ellery was nice, it just keeps getting better.   This Ghost Gum on the right is at the look out and it's roots travel 70 feet to the bottom of the gorge.  











We jump on the motorbike and go for a ride to the Ochre pits, where the aboriginals gather the ochre for painting themselves for ceremonies.  You can cop up to a $5000 fine if caught taking any ochre rocks from this site.   Unlike the Munga Munga dreaming of Pebbles - Devils Marbles, this place is "secret mens business".  

The Ochre Pits, lots of colours in the rocks, red, gold, purple










After Ochre pits we went to Glen Helen Gorge, Darl wanted to swim across the Finke river (oldest river in the world, 100 million years old!! cop that) so he did and we celebrated at the bar with a couple drinks and a camel burger, bit chewy and spiced up!    Back at camp Darl did some maintenance on car before we tackle the Mereenie loop to Kings Canyon tomorrow.

 We are amazed at the plants growing out of the rocks, flowers, trees, grass......unreal

This is my Darl, that little bit of white wash in the middle of the river..  He is doing the dash over and back on the Finke!   That camel burger was worth it.....

The Ghost Gums are beautiful, my Darl reckons this is the best shot ever and will win prizes.   At Ormiston we ventured down after dark one night to the waters edge to see if we could find some wildlife, however there was none about, heard lots of noises, frogs, bats and birds.......doodeedoodee.   The ghost gum trees illuminate in the moon light, awesome!