Depending on what you read or who you talk to this is the world's largest or second largest Rock/monocline/isoberg (claims of twice the size of Uluru). We're slightly dubious thou as the national Park brochure makes no such claim.
Whatever the truth is a pretty large mountain/Rock at 1105m and very striking sitting in the middle of nowhere with pretty much nothing around for 350km in every direction except for the station and attached tourist Park. Well run Park and having grass under the tent again was super. Great views of the mountain and I was talking to the woman who runs the place and she said she's never seen it so green and that we've visited at a highly unusual time. I can't remember if I mentioned already but the wild flowers on the way were just incredible with carpets of pink and yellow. So amazing and extra good this year as they had good winter rains.
The summit climb is the aspiration of most visitors to the park. There are warning signs everywhere about the danger of this climb and risk of dying from exposure, heat stroke, dehydration, etc and to carry 4 lies of water per person so we were a little bit wary. Asked a group of army reserves who has done it for it was and they were like oh it's very tough and dunno if the children could do it etc. We decided we'd her up early and start at sunrise to beat the heat and turn back if it got too much. There are two routes up. The gully route is more difficult and has plenty rock scrambling and walking up the creek bed which it turns out it's mostly rock which would be treacherous in wet conditions. Three summit trail itself is a marked trail with some minor rock scrambling. North have a gentle section of 1.5km to start (gain of 110m altitude)
and then intersect before dividing again on the middle and steepest section which is 1.5km long (340m altitude gain) where the tracks meet again at the top of the gully. The remaining 3km is a pretty easy and good stroll thru short trees and shrubs although there's a bit of a rock scramble on the last 300m. We decided we'd go up the gully and bail out to the summit trail at the intersections if it was too difficult. Turns out it was great fun and really amazing views so made it to the top in about 3 hours. Had most of the gully section on shade which was brilliant as it would have been a heat trap in the sun with all the reflecting rocks. There's a cairn you can stand on (a dedicated Ranger carried up the cement and materials for it and a picnic table!) with an epic 360 degree view. It's just a vast desert landscape interspersed with patches of mauve (Mulla Mulla) and pink wildflowers plus green areas along the banks of the rivers where the huge river red gums grow. Bumped into a Scottish couple so didn't about an hour chatting before descending in about 1hr 45mins. Great strenuous hike but not as difficult we'd been told. I suspect a lot of people who attempt this rarely hike or start at the wrong time of day.
After a week deserved lunch we visited the petroglyphs which are some Aboriginal engravings and a stroll at Ooramboo which has some beautiful River gums. There were two tiny waterholes which attracted heaps of birds like budgies, zebra finches, painted finches and spiny cheeked honey eaters. Also loads of lizards. It's brilliant seeing flocks of budgies ripping thru the bush or chattering on huge white River gums.
That night a fellow camper vans and pointed out some night sky stuff to us including Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and Mercury which allegedly is rarely seen in a lifetime and also the constellation of Scorpio. Wonder if we'll be able to find it again!
Next morning we strolled up kotka gorge which was a good scramble but we all got a bit hot and tired quickly after the previous day's exertion and there was no breeze in the gorge either. After that headed south to meekatharra which I blogged earlier.
Definitely worth a visit even for the drive there (was plenty lovely free camps in the road between Mt Augustus and Kennedy Range but none on the road to meekatharra).
#END
No comments:
Post a Comment