Day 19, Wednesday 30 June 21
The day started beautifully. Clear, warmest morning yet on the trip… and visitors for breakfast. A family of Ring-necked Parrots dropped in.
After bidding adieu to the feathered drop-ins we went out along the Ross Highway to the Eastern MacDonnell Range, landed at Trephina Gorge. As Kath Day-Knight would say, two words: Stunning!
The day was warm – the warmest yet, so we opted out of the 9 km / 4 hours each way Grade 5 walk to Hayes Waterhole and took the Ridgetop Panorama walk instead. It delivered on the ‘panoramic’ label.
After the walk we had a picnic lunch in the creek bed. As we got back to the car a fella was taking great delight in telling everyone that Alice Springs was going into lockdown at 1 pm … ( it was now 1.30pm) . That piece of info was initially rated ‘F8’ on cred / reliability, but was we drove back to Alice the procession of 4WD with Queensland plates towing vans streaming past us towards the East added credence to the tale.
Back in radio reception range – and the news confirmed. 3 days lockdown. Purnululu now looking shot , we will ride out the next three days and see what transpires. FFS, get vaccinated people !!
Ness’ and Mark’s Wandering 