Big West Macs: Larapinta and the Namatjira Drive

From Alice Springs we hit the road for the West Macdonnell Ranges or West Macs. The road follows the Namatjira Highway along amazing spinifex grass landscapes and rocky outcrops.

Following the Larapinta trailheads intersecting with the over 200km world class hiking trail, The Larapinta Trail, we stopped at gaps and gorges in the ranges.

Standley Chasm has impressive sheer cliffs:

 The Ochre Pits, where Aborigines have extracted ochre for body paint for thousands of years, had amazing colours:

At the far end of the trail, we camped at Glen Helen homestead which fronted its gorge with flaming red cliffs. 

Outside, there was  a quirky piano by the bar.

We had fun meeting the local wildlife: a wild galah only bonding with human males, asking them for head scratches and causing mayhem as he pecked windscreen rubber or humans who rubbed him the wrong way. Perched in a cage was a vociferous sulphur crested cockatoo which loudly proclaimed "hello darling"! Care was needed to avoid this cockie's startling ability to poke the entire head out of the cage, lure you to scratch the neck, then whirl the beak round with lightning speed for a painful peck.

For dinner, we baked our first damper or campoven bread, a feat we found quite the pride of our stay. 

At night, we headed into the gorge lit up by the terrace floodlight of the homestead. Gen had a shot at night photography to capture the low hanging moon and stars.

One morning we went for a helicopter ride from Glen Helen over rippling hilltops, also known as caterpillar dreaming, and on over the Finke River, returning via Ormiston Gorge and Ormiston Pound with spectacular views of rock formations, colours, shades, and vegetal stippling.