West MacDonnells Range

Howdy again everyone,

Today was our last big scheduled event, and it certainly was an awesome tour.  We took a tour of the West MacDonnells Range.  This range was also created by the Alice Springs Orogeny, which I talked a lot about in my previous post.  This range contained a number of awesome geological formations and hosts some older plants in different areas of the range.

However, before getting to that, let's start off with our first stop on the range.  We arrived at the Stanley Chasm first.  This chasm was used back in 1925 by Ida Stanley to hide Aboriginal children from two warring Aboriginal nations.  The chasm has two different walls of rock.  One side of the rock is smoother than the other, and this is due to the type of rock that exists in the chasm.  In this particular area of the range, quartz and red quartzite are present in the walls.  One side of the chasm is more eroded than the other, which is actually similar to the erosion that occurred at King's Canyon.  The chasm is colored different shades of red, white, and yellow.  The color is determined by the amount of oxidation of iron that is also present with the rock.

Within the chasm, a prehistoric plant thrives within the range.  This plant is called a cycad.   This plant actually thrives better in rainforests like the Daintree, however, because of the cover in the chasm, the plant can survive in the conditions of the outback.  The presence of this plant also gives evidence that a rainforest existed in the Macdonnell Range millions of years ago.  The cycad is not a flowering plant.  In order for it to reproduce, the cycad reproduces by releasing seeds.  These seeds, however, are poisonous, and are avoided by animals.  Therefore, the plant needs to grow near potential water sources or rivers in order to reproduce.  The seeds travel down river and grow in other areas of the land.  Aboriginals use this plant's seeds as a food source, by clearing the seed of their poison and then eating them.

We also stopped at the Ochre Pit.  Ochre is a rock that is similar to chalk.  Aboriginals use ochre for a variety of things.  The different color ochre had different uses.  For example, red ochre is used as a medicine to cure stomach aches and it can be used for painting.

We then moved to the Ormiston Gorge and then the Mount Sonder lookout.  The lookout provided an excellent view of a large portion of the range.  The best part of this lookout was that we could see the Finke River.  This river runs throughout the Western Macdonnell range and is thought to be the oldest, uninterrupted river in the world.  Aboriginals in this area believe that the range was created by large processional caterpillars, which moved through the range to create the various gorges and land formations.

To finish the day, we stopped at Glen Hellen Gorge, Ellery Big Hole, and finally Simpson's Gorge.  My favorite stop had to be Ellery Big Hole, which is a giant watering hole connected to the Finke River.  The water had to be at least 12 degrees Celsius, however, it felt pretty good since it was a pretty warm day today.

Thanks guys, 4 more days in Aussieland, and I am pretty sad to leave.  Back to Sydney in a few days!

Later,

Justin