Early this morning, while Vilis hiked to Ormiston Gorge Lookout and then to the creek to retrieve his hat, forgotten there last evening, I wandered the campground and bits of the Larapinta Trail (its beckoning hills made me yearn to walk it for days) and Ormiston Pound Walk in search of birds. Western ringnecks foraged in red-flowering shrubs, their feathers like brilliant jewels in the sunlight. A half-dozen grey-crowned babblers possessing rich reddish bellies of the rubecola race chattered and flounced from ground to tree, while white-plumed and grey-headed neyeaters flitted about in campground trees. Variegated fairy-wrens, the males exquisitely coloured in a collage of cobalt, aqua, black, chestnut, brown, and white, sang thin, high-pitched songs from within mulgas, while zebra finches, willie wagtails, and budgies hung out near the waterhole.

On Vilis’s return, we set out for Ormiston Pound, knowing we would bushwalk the trail as a return hike rather than a loop due to the deep waterholes in the gorge. We rock-hopped across Ormiston Creek, spotting black-fronted dotterels on a sandbar and fairy martins and little woodswallows wheeling in the impossibly blue desert sky. The track led us over rocky hills vegetated with spinifex, herbs, and scattered shrubs and trees. Wildflowers blooming among the rocks caught our eyes, and sweeping views led us on to a pass between uplands.

Beyond the pass, we soon reached a steep track leading to a lookout on a rocky crest overlooking Ormiston Pound. We climbed to the lookout, joining two women who had reached the ridge before us, one of whom happily took our picture in exchange for Vilis taking theirs.

Below us, the Pound stretched away from us as an expanse of desert grassland surrounded by red-rock ramparts and saw-toothed ridges. Both Vilis and I commented on how much that landscape, with serpetine Ormiston Creek coiling its way through the lowland, reminded us of the upland tundra of the Yukon Territory’s Ogilvie Mountains. The same sense of a vast wilderness existed here.

We hiked the ridge crest, its surface a jumble of red rocks bleached by the sun. Budgies flew past us as singles or in small flocks, and a little button-quail ran out from under my feet, then ducked among the rocks and spinifex, remaining surprisingly still while Vilis photographed it. After drinking in the long views as though we needed them to sustain our souls, we retraced our steps along the crest and down to the Pound Walk.

Three hours after leaving Ormiston Gorge, we returned, eating our lunch in the shade of campground trees, where we were visited by courting spinifex pigeons, and a curious budgie and spiny-cheeked and white-plumed honeyeaters. Then we broke camp and drove east on Namatjira Drive to the access trail for Serpentine Gorge, another of the striking red-rock clefts eroded through the upland barrier of the ‘West Macs.’

After hiking in along the trail we discovered that access into the gorge was blocked by a deep pool that had us wading into it up to our armpits and then abandoning our efforts. Instead, we climbed the steep track up to a lookout over the gorge, from which we were able to see cycads – relics of a time when central Australia’s climate was wetter – growing on the banks of the waterhole within the gorge, and on lower sections of gorge wall. The gorge lived up to its name, snaking away to an enticingly narrow chasm in the distance, its mystery alluring to Vilis and me, but historically a place of evil to Aboriginal peoples, who apparently still avoid it.¹

Exhausted after six hours of bushwalking and climbing to lookouts, we left Serpentine Gorge and made a brief stop at Simpson’s Gap before returning to Alice Springs. At the Gap, past geological turmoil was evidenced by tilted belts of rock lit to a glowing red by late afternoon sun. River red gums lined the creekbed, their smooth bark mottled with white-grey and a pale, dusty red like that of the skins of red grapes. I noted whitewash dripping from ledges on the red walls, and caught a glimpse of a dark, pointed-winged raptor banking around a cliff wall – probably one of the Gap’s resident peregrine falcons. Then, drained of any remaining energy, we found a G’Day Mate Tourist Park home for the night. Tomorrow, we’re riding camels.

Today’s birds: white-plumed honeyeaters, grey-crowned babblers, western ringnecks, whistling kite, budgies, brown honeyeater, peaceful doves, zebra finches, willie wagtail, sacred kingfisher, magpie-larks, *variegated fairy-wrens (f,m), diamond doves, grey shrike-thrushes, grey-headed honeyeaters, rainbow bee-eater, black-fronted dotterels, little woodswallows, fairy martins, *little button-quail, rufous songlarks, spinifex pigeons, spiny-cheeked honeyeater, *pied honeyeaters (m), white-winged trillers, black kite, cockatiels, galahs. Also probable peregrine falcon. (*denotes lifelist sighting)

Reference:

1. Interpretive sign at Serpentine Gorge Lookout.