Chambers Pillar, Rough and Tumble Thriller

We picked a fun adventure out of Alice Springs by hitting the Maryvale Road and then turning off for a wild ride to Chambers Pillar. The Maryvale Road was pockmarked with ironhard potholes and endless corrugations.

Local 2wd speedsters had bashed their steeds and deposited a blizzard of broken exhaust pipes, burst tyres, and assorted ironware all across the road. 

Time for us to deflate the tyres by 30%, slow down, and hug the thin strip on the side of the road that was half in and half out of the corrugation. 

In the middle of nowhere, we spot a sign for mobile coverage next 2 kms. But that is what we were trying to avoid for a social media detox!

Beside the road are the remains of the Old Ghan Railway, now abandoned.

Also parallel to the road is a race track, jumping up and down and twisting through deep red earth, for the Mad Max contraptions of the annual Finke Desert Race.

A bizarre sight on the side of the road was an ATM plugged in to a power point and a payphone surrounded by children's vehicles.

Wow, what is that we see ahead? Yay, a grader scraping a way forwards. Yippee! Twenty kms of gliding later, the grading ended and we turned off onto a single track route winding through sandy stretches interspersed with dramatic washouts and sections where rock formations became the road. 

The highlight was the very steep hill ascent and descent where a torrent of water had swept loose rock for us to bounce and grind through in low gear ...Hughie the Beast never faltered, just kept scrabbling up and then down like a mountain goat.

The last bit of the road formed a series of sand dune jump-ups where you needed to keep eyes peeled and preferably a sand flag on the aerial when mounting the crests.

At last, 5 hours after setting off, we spied the massive outcrops of Castle Rock and Chambers Pillar soaring skywards. Quite the setting for a Bush Western Film.

We had the place to ourselves. So we parked up Hughie and took a walk through the colourful sand and spinifex to circuit Chambers Pillar originally discovered April 1860 by John McDouall Stuart, the explorer.

The reddish streaks are iron oxide which has been sucked up from the lower levels of sediment.

A set of steps led us to historical names of explorers from the 19th and 20th century, such as Alfred Giles (1870), carved into soft stone.

Aboriginal tales record Chambers Pillar as an errant warrior, the Knobtailed Gecko who turned to stone beside his unlawfully gotten woman who also turned to stone as the neighbouring Castle Rock which is a very impressive backdrop to the campsite.

As ever, the equivalent of 'Sharon and Chardonnay from Geelong' had etched their names and a heart with vandals' pride so we could witness their event so kindly shared for the next 1000 years. We open the bar and witness the sunset glow beneath the moon and stars.

In the morning, we rise and shine with the first glimmer of sunrise and the first buzz of friendly fly swarms.

The first rays cutting across the spinifex are magic. A poignant memorial to 'Big Bob', bush adventurer stands in the dunes beneath the Pillar, here at the fringes of the Simpson Desert.

We retrace our route towards Alice Springs, noting a faithful set of animal tracks that follows our tyre marks for many kms.

We pull in 30 kms short for a night camping at Ooraminna Station, a lovely bush station. Recent drought means the owners are doing it tough and have had to de-stock horses and cattle. Beside the station campsite is a charming old film set, complete with Junction Hotel, Police Station, and shops. Rippled sand in the street and rusted iron squeaking in the wind, make the atmosphere complete. Sadly, as Slim Dusty would say, the pub has no beer.