Note: indicated routes are approximate. Use official topographic maps
for navigation.
I arranged transport out to Ellery Creek for the afternoon of my arrival in
Alice Springs. After catching up with a mate for coffee, doing some last minute
shopping and obtaining the all-important food-drop key, I got a ride with
Sandrifter Safaris to the trailhead.
They also deposited my food drop at Ormiston Gorge.
Wildfires burnt a significant part of the Larapinta Trail in early 2019. By
June, some of the vegetation had started to recover, but many parts were sill
completely blackened.
From Serpentine Gorge the trail heads up to a ridge and then back down again to
Serpentine Chalet Dam. Normally that's a one-day walk, but I had a few spare
days up my sleeve, so I decided to split that into two short days and camp on
top at Counts Point.
In the 1950s an ill-fated tourism venture was built just a few kilometres
down the road from this location, and in the 1960s this dam was built in a
small gorge to supply it with water. The "chalet" is now just a concrete slab,
the dam is silted up with sand and rubble, and this rusty pipe has seen better
days.
The quality of light in the gorges is often pretty bad. It's usually either
direct sunlight or shade with a noticeable blue cast. Sometimes though for a
short period you get really great light as the sun hits the opposite wall and
lights your subject with buckets of diffuse, warm-toned light.
Just before breakfast. The Finke River trailhead has a steel shelter and tent
pads about 50 metres behind me, but with no prospect of rain, the river bed
makes a much better campsite.