Elad’s blog

Australians are really keen about their centre. The Alice and its surrounds are constantly referred to as the “red centre” in all the touristic publications. Today, on my daily hike of the West Macdonnell Ranges, I understood why.

Pretty much like in Eilat mountains, the ground in the deserts here is red. The scenery remainded me of Eilat area in more aspects: the Ranges are a series of small mountains, and the views did ring a bell.

For Tony, however, it was an amazing experience. It turned out that this is the first time in his life that he got into a desert, and it struck him like deserts usually do - with the silence, the spaces, the geological forms, and even the combination with the trees, as the desert here does not lack vegetation.

We visited two sites: Simpsons Gap, which is a gap in the mountains formed by a river, is house to a colony of rock wallabies - small rabbit-like marsupials. We did spot a few of them lazing on the rocks, and it was nice looking at (and taking photos of) the creatures.

Standley Chasm, which we attended later, was more impressive. We actually did some hike there, climbing out of the chasm into a nice lookout - again, Tony was thrilled, I thought it was a very nice desert hiking, but not extraordinary to desert views (which I realy love, as my friends know).

Tony has lost his camera yesterday evening. He probably forgot it with the two english girls which we visited after our small pub round, when we were both quite drunk (I more than him, as I have very poor resistance to alcohol). We met these girls (Genne and Laura) briefly in Katherine Gorge, and maybe they will join us on Saturday for the next part of the journey. To Ayers Rock, where they go in a tour, we will go with yet another english girl - Emma, which Tony knows from Darwin, and is soon arriving from there by flight. We are going to pick her up, and then head down to the rock.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2005 at 10:16 and is filed under Travels, Australia Center and South. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.