It was relatively warm overnight but sometime in the early morning a chilly breeze sprung up, making it tough to get out of bed. We had a relatively quick pack up after some coffee and headed into Alice to refuel. Then it was off to explore the East MacDonnell range. It was a nice drive out along the Ross Highway. We stopped off at all the tourist spots - Emily Gap, Jessie Gap, Corroboree Rock and Trephina Gorge.
At Trephina Gorge we went for a drive out to John Hayes Rockhole on the 4 WD Track. Once there we went for a walk to see the waterhole and then climbed up to a nearby lookout.
At Trephina Gorge itself I took the easy gorge walk while Brett and Shane went for the moderately hard walk around the gorge rim. We then had a bit of lunch before heading off on the drive to Ruby Gap Gorge.
This was a nice little drive to the entrance of the park with the road deteriorating the further along we got while the view and scenery just got better and better. We paid our camping fees at the entrance and then drove down the dry river bank a bit following the existing track. We came to the end of the relatively easy bit of driving and there were quite a few people camped there so we decided to go over the rock bar and head further down the river bed. This lead to a few problems as while there was a fairly defined path there were quite a few places where good clearance was needed.
Shane, of course, made this all look very easy but Brett and I needed to be very precise with our wheel placement to make it work. After we got across the hardest part there was a patch of very soft sand which claimed Brett first and then me later. Brett had forgotten that he had to have the cruiser in Neutral (not Park) to engage low range and all the traction tricks and was worried that it wasn't getting any power or drive. A quick snatch out by Shane (after a photo of course) and Brett's car seemed fine. Then it was my turn and I tried giving it a lot of acceleration in low range but I also got stuck in the sand, however some quick work with the MaxTrax and engaging the rear diff lock saw me out without any further problems. As there we no photos of me being stuck and I was able to self recover, it didn't really happen and there is no evidence to the contrary.
We continued on only a hundred metres or so around a corner to a nice isolated spot where we setup camp for the evening.
Shane had collected some wood before the Park so we had a nice roaring fire and then some dinner. Afterwards Shane and Brett were doing some spectacular night photography before we headed off to bed.
Sent from my iPhone
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