Thierings on Tour

What a beautiful place to wake up! It was lovely to see the sun rise over the cliffs and admire the view.

We weren’t in a particular rush this morning so packed up, had breakfast and did some more work and homework before heading out on a walk around the gorge. The full gorge pound walk takes around 4-5 hours so we decided to opt for a tamer version and headed on the ghost gum lookout walk.

It was a steep climb up to the initial lookout, but totally worth the burn. The girls appreciated the view as well, which was nice. I remember this lookout as the final stop of our 5 day Larapinta trek and it was nice to bring the girls here and share this special place with them.

We continued on around the cliff edges and eventually made our way down to cross over to the other side. Unfortunately this year (or this time of year) there are a lot of dead fish in the water so it wasn’t water anyone really wanted to cross barefoot… but unfortunately for Chris and I that’s what we had to do and carry the kids across. We picked a spot where we couldn’t see any dead fish, at least! Apparently it’s caused by low oxygen levels, likely to be due to the cold conditions at the moment. Such a shame, because we enjoyed a swim at Ormiston every day during our 5 day hike!

It was a completely different view from the other side and the terrain was a bit tricky with lots of rocks, but the kids enjoyed the challenge.

There was also the promise of ice cream after lunch to get everyone through the walk! Chris and I got the best bacon & egg roll on this trip as our treat.

Back at camp we jumped in the car to do the track out to Kings Canyon. I insisted on a quick stop at the Mount Zinder lookout to show the girls and Chris what I had previously climbed. The girls said a quick “wow” and then stuck their heads back into the iPad 😂

We’d heard the rest of the track was a bit rough, but weren’t sure what to expect… the worst part turned out to be the turnoff to Gosse Bluff crater. It was a really cool place to visit and the size was impressive! Jazzy just couldn’t get her head around the idea that the meteor would have been big enough to create the entire place and kept looking for where it had “fallen”.

Unfortunately Chris made a discovery that we had blown a third CV boot (which made him both frustrated and stressed). Luckily we already had the car booked into the mechanic back at Alice Springs at the end of this loop, but it wasn’t ideal.

After a quick look at the sunset platform we grabbed a quick dinner and tried to have an early night. The big walk this morning and the long afternoon set off quite a few big feelings – something we are still working through.

Kms travelled – 248