Redbank Gorge - Tjoritja National Park, NT

A few months ago we paddled into a mountain - one of our shortest and most accessible adventures yet. But also, one of our most extraordinary. 

Mt Giles, Tjoritja (West MacDonnell National Park), NT

Woke with the alarm at 4am! Walking by 6:15am. Still dark and we use head torches for the first 1-2km before there is enough light to walk by. But, it is a beautiful clear morning - there’s a pink glow in the sky. At the bloodwood tree we stop to put on our gaiters, then, head off track as the first sun hits the peaks around us. Walking through the magnificent bowl of Ormiston Gorge in Tjoritja (West MacDonnell National Park) we are encircled by beauty. Ahead looms our distant destination - Mt Giles, bathed in the light of the day ahead.

The third highest peak in the Northern Territory, Mt Giles, is a well established off-track destination  in the West Macs. It offers vast and spectacular views. There are track notes in print and information online - Chapman, Daly, blogs both old and new. So with all that information out there on the world wide Webber I’m going to let Caz’s photos do the speaking and the inspiring. I’m going to focus on experience and what can be discovered under the surface of the landscape, and the bushwalker.

The dingoes' run - West MacDonnell Ranges, NT

Bowmans Gap

No track markers, no blue or yellow arrows nailed to trees, no signposts. There are just paw prints in the sand that have created a well-worn pad leading along the dry, sandy creek bed. Today we are following a trail of a different kind: the dingoes' run.

The path heads east. It is packed down from regular use. Small prints show the dingoes daily travels to and from the Ormiston Gorge campground. They have set a small, efficient path in the sand and it is leading in the right direction for us. So, we follow, all the way from Ormiston Gorge to Bowman's Gap, which is a north-west break in the huge, beautiful bowl that is Ormiston Pound, in the West MacDonnell National Park out of Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory.